How to optimize software testing costs?

Microsoft Windows operating system has about 50 million lines of code, Google’s entire code base is estimated to contain 2 billion lines of code and the average mobile app has 50k lines of code. From this, you can imagine the efforts and time required to test the simple mobile app. The overall Software Testing costs are observed between 15 to 25% of the total project cost according to the industry standards. It also depends on the experience, skills, and job role of the resources. Whereas, if you plan to outsource testing services, the testing cost may vary depending on the complexity of the project. But how do you estimate the price of software testing? Also how to optimize the software testing price? Let’s have a look.

How to estimate the software testing cost?

You can measure the software testing costs by considering 4 expenses divided into categories-

• Detection cost- It is the cost to create test cases and setting up test environments to detect defects.
• Internal failure costs- This is a cost to fix the defects before delivering the product.
• Prevention costs- It is a cost to train developers to write maintainable and testable code to hire developers with the same skillset
• External failure costs- Cost to fix technical problems/issues cased after delivery of the compromised quality product.

The cost to detect defects is the main part of overall testing costs. By default, it is involved in the software testing cost estimation even though the testing team finds no defects. Other prices are to work on fixing the defects before delivering a product.

How to optimize the software testing price?

1. Test as soon as possible-

The cost to fix an error after product release is 4 to 5 times as much as detected during the design phase. Hence, it is important to test the software at the early stages, before small issues develop into much larger ones. What can you do to implement this?

• Prioritize performance and security-related issues.
• Frequently run test sessions like regression and continuous testing in each sprint in agile software development
• Introduce tests at the early stages of development by not avoiding the issues down the line from the unit to integration testing

2. Use Modern Tools UI Testing-

The best way of effective UI testing is to automate visual regression testing by using low code solutions. The main reason is that there are various testing tools that allow you to run UI tests within 5 minutes without the need of developers to code. Those tools use smart image comparison, analyze and verify DOM structure and on-page elements, and automatic handling of timeouts. In the long run, such practices save resources of all types. Also, it minimizes the communication gap with programmers, analysts, and testers. So increases the development process and feasibility with other types of functional testing and user acceptance.

3. Use Test driven development-

Test-driven development means writing unit tests before writing the code.  It starts with unit testing of functionalities by specifying code functions from earlier stages. Having hands-on TDD helps you to identify functionalities that are failing. Also, programmers can quickly work on the identified issues resulting in smooth code refactoring, good documentation, and less debugging. Let’s have a look at three steps to get started-

• Apply TDD to a project needs detailed project requirements and an understanding of defining specifications in unit tests. At the earlier stages, those specifications prevent the projects from going into an undefined scope.
• Collect test case scenarios for failing tests
• Create unit tests with expected results.

It improves the readability of code and better product architecture that simplifies including new features to existing code. Also, it creates high-quality code, few bugs, and provides 100% test coverage.

4. Consider Risk-based Testing-

This kind of testing covers all possible risks that can appear at the time of testing software. It includes prioritizing risk factors that may affect code quality. For instance, functions and testing features are based on the risk of failure, the importance of the functions, and the possible impact of such failures. It decides the testing objectives by organizing the testing team’s efforts in a unidirectional manner to decrease the risks of failure once the product goes product. So using this strategy avoids the risk of external failure of software products along with some advantages related to productivity and software quality like-

• Identification of security gaps and performance bottlenecks
• Better test cases due to risk analysis
• Early detection of problems and preventive measures at the early stages
• Defined strategies, testing objectives and directions adjusted based on problem areas.
• Risk monitoring

5. Optimize the use of Manual Testing-

Manual testing causes more human errors and optimizing its use can ease your software testing, particularly in enterprise-level projects. If the project scope expands, it increases the time, workforce, and software testing costs. But it is time-consuming and also challenging particularly for the cases where testers need to change the testing strategy because of last-minute changes.

6. Use Hyper Testing Strategy-

It is a part of agile testing that detects testing issues from three angles, Practices, processes, and tools. It increases speed to market and overcomes technical complexities that may occur in an agile environment. Also, it covers end-to-end testing by identifying defects of the app. Thus, it gives increased ROI, reduced test maintenance, and increased capabilities of the continuous testing process. One can design and execute this testing strategy by using non-functional or functional testing tools.

7. Use Reusable Materials in Training the Employees-

You need to introduce the organization’s methodologies to the new testers joining the QA team. Here rather than allocating dedicated resources for training employees, you can take an advantage of reusable materials and courses. You can also ask experts to provide recorded materials that you can use multiple times and host one-time on-site training sessions. This will altogether reduce expenses and time spent on training new testers in the QA team because you’ll get the materials and resources ready for easy and efficient onboarding.

8. Optimize process costs-

Inefficiencies in processes cause waste of time and money. Hence here are some of the ways that you could improve your processes-

• Take an agile approach, means avoiding the planning of large development cycles without getting feedback. Go with the short iterations, and check frequently with users or clients if requirements are being met. Analyze the progress of teamwork, and aim to make retrospective analyses that allow for future improvements.
• Analyze development processes that generate waiting for periods, dependencies, unnecessary accumulation, and so on.
• Perform a root cause analysis of recurring errors, not just to work on solving issues but also to understand the reason to avoid them in the future.
• Analyze communication channels to find ways to improve and clarify, avoid rework, errors, etc.

Final Words-

The discussion of software testing costs continues till you have detailed project requirements and you are sure about the project scope. Once you finalize the tech stack for a project you can proceed toward the software testing cost estimation. The above-mentioned tips will help you to optimize the software testing cost. You can also outsource the software testing of projects. Consult with Solace experts for effective software development and optimized testing. You can hire solace developers for modern software development. We will be happy to help you.

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