At Which Point Software Testing Companies Will Stop Testing Activity
A famous proverb goes that “Everything beautiful comes to its end one day”. Unfortunately, software testing is no exception. By this is meant that software testing companies must terminate testing at proper time. This point is to be nothing but a place, e.g. such as limbo: you will never be completely free from risks or bugs as well as you will never miss a huge number of major bugs present in the code.
In software testing, this point is called “testing equilibrium”.
Most companies do not take this fact seriously and such negligence often leads to undesirable consequences – development of over- or under-testing scenarios. In general, top executives suppose that over-testing is not a problem at all but, on the contrary, is a logical and very safe solution if there are time and/or budget restrictions. Again, when they are limited by time and money, they behave in the ways that are self-interested and ungenerous. In such a case they dare to ask you to interrupt testing process quite early, ahead of time, almost in the very beginning.
As a rule, top executives (upper managers) have vague understanding of how the testing is run; moreover, they are unaware of the amount of quality assurance work to be done. And it becomes easy to guess what they are good at – counting budget and time.
Beta testing companies hire non-technical people for the testing job as it is important for them to gather customer feedback on the products before public announcement. Being a beta tester allows an individual to try the program out before the rest and earn some money at the same time.
No one would argue that project risks (for instance, staffing problems, budget constraints, supplier issues, time-to-market demands, etc.) are crucial drivers for resolving on performing testing. But, apart from this, it is probably necessary to consider product risks along with other equal or similar priorities.
Thus, on these slippy slopes a tester or test manager needs to be well-organized and wise. It is not good to forget to employ risk-driven testing approaches or at the least weight and prioritize test scenarios.
So when does quality assurance company basically stop testing??
To make a decision on whether to stop or continue testing you must always take into account the level of risks associated with the process, including technical risks, security risks and business risks, as well as constraints, such as time, budget and personnel.
Testing should provide stakeholders with sufficient information on software or systems that underwent verification in order to make reasonable decisions about whether they will pass through the next stage of development or go live.