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What’s worse? Receiving a cake like this?
Or having it arrive so late it misses the party altogether?
Either way, you’re not happy.
You ask for a refund. Tell your friends and family. Then head to the nearest bakery who’s just waiting for you to rush in with a fistful of cash.
What should have been a simple and fun experience turns into a flustering mess of tears, tantrums and embarrassment. How could they get it so wrong?
It all seems simple enough to us. But we don’t see what happens behind the scenes at the bakery. It’s complex. They have people, tools, processes, and even some automation to speed things along. But as the customer, that’s not your concern. You just needed the right cake, on time.
Same goes for your own customers.
When your releases fall behind because you prioritise quality over speed, your business suffers the same consequences as the Late Cake Bakery. But sending a terrible product, buggy feature or bad fix out into the world is just as damaging, if not worse.
You end up with:
- Stagnant growth as you struggle to enter new markets
- Competitors beating you at your own game
- Revenue losses
- A red face
Delayed releases aren’t new. But with so many happening so frequently, the pressure mounts. And if you’re the engineering lead, all eyes are on you, Chef.
But here’s where the analogy breaks down. You’re not a bakery with an old school waterfall process. You’re a dynamic, resourceful team with a modern approach.
So why do your releases keep getting delayed?
Stubborn silos kill software release momentum
Modern project management frameworks promise to break down silos like those at the bakery. But not all silos got the memo. Invisible walls spring up between internal roles. Making communication falter in even well established Agile teams.
Left unchecked, these divides spell bad news for morale and disaster for deadlines.
With DevOps and Agile methods, it doesn’t make sense to exclude your internal testers from the development phase. In the same way that developers can give your product owner realistic expectations on what’s achievable, testers can feed valuable insights on the breadth and scope of testing methods they’ll need to implement. Without this, you’re left with a wonky ‘wagile method’, where information only flows in one waterfall direction, despite your team’s outwardly agile appearance.
You had a bad brush with an external vendor
If you outsource testing, your releases are only as fast and accurate as your vendor. How certain are you that they have the right people, in the right locations, with the right skills and tools? And what about their own ability to scale?
If you’re uncertain at the outset, you’ll find out the painful way. Maybe this has happened to you in the past. You’ve spent time on vetting a supplier, spent already squeezed budgets on a contract and not seen any reduction in your release bottleneck.
Or perhaps you’ve pondered the idea. But the thought of going through the vendor selection process has held you back. That would be understandable.
If you’ve had problems with vendors in the past. Or hell-bent on avoiding them in the future, there’s a quick way to assess best-fit:
Trustworthy: Check who they’ve worked for before. Do you recognise the brands? Do they have proof they can deliver their promises?
Scalable: Does the vendor have testers in the locations your app users live? How about in the new markets you plan to break into?
Knowledgeable: Do they understand your industry? Your business needs? Your customers' needs? Do they know and use the same tools as you?
You’re only as good as your tools
App testing tool kits include everything from automated testing tools, to hardware devices to ticketing systems. But being tooled-up for every eventuality in a fast-paced development world is challenging.
52% of CTOs say budgets aren’t keeping up with the pace of software development.
The right tools for today may not be the right tools for tomorrow. Especially as you enter uncharted territory like new markets, device adoption trends and unexpected changes.
Team size and competency limitations
Attracting, training and retaining the best people isn’t a stroll through the bluebells. Even with a solid in-house team, peaks and troughs in demand, skills, and experience make hiring permanent staff untenable. Even more so if you’re in the midst of a headcount freeze.
What’s more, if your software is to reach people all around the globe, across multiple devices, testing isn’t just constrained by skill level and experience, but location too.
“Let’s just ship a shoddy product”
— Nobody ever
You can’t afford to release buggy, embarrassing junk. If you don’t have enough of the right internal resources to deliver at the quality your customers expect without endless delays, we can help.
With Global App Testing’s help, you’ll:
- Immediately access on demand testing, removing delays due to resource challenges
- Hit deadline goals and increase product release velocity
- Unlock new revenue streams in new markets faster
- Manage your SDLC speed without the fear of QA bottlenecks
- Reduce the risk of new feature requests failing, release better products faster
You can use Global App Testing as a complete QA solution or as a scalable backup on demand. Some businesses use us as their overflow. Others partner with us to slot in and do the things that other teams just can’t do. We can be a full extension or we can be a complete replacement depending on the needs of the company.
The result? Smoother collaboration, aligned expectations, and realistic deadlines agreed from the get-go.
Book a chat with one of our growth specialists to diagnose your release delay problems and get advice specific to your business.