“Best practices” is one of those terms that gets thrown around a lot in QA—sometimes it means solid habits, other times it just means “how we’ve always done it.”
But real best practices aren’t about following a script—they’re about staying adaptable while holding onto the principles that actually improve quality. Here are five that have stood the test of time for me, no matter the project, team size, or tech stack.
Top 5 QA Best Practices
1. Focus Testing on High-Risk, High-Value Areas
- Practice: Prioritize testing efforts on features, workflows, and user paths that have the greatest impact on users and business objectives.
- Why it’s essential: Ensures QA resources are directed to the areas most likely to result in critical defects or customer dissatisfaction, maximizing value.
- Example:
For an online banking application, QA prioritizes testing the funds transfer and payment processing workflows, as failures in these areas could result in significant financial losses and damage customer trust.
2. Balance Automation with Exploratory Testing
- Practice: Use automation to handle repetitive, predictable tasks (e.g., regression testing), while leveraging exploratory testing to uncover risks and edge cases that automation may miss.
- Why it’s essential: Combines the speed and efficiency of automation with the creativity and adaptability of human testers, resulting in more comprehensive coverage.
- Example:
In an e-commerce platform, automated tests cover the standard checkout process, while exploratory testing focuses on complex user behaviors, such as switching between currencies or modifying items in the cart during checkout.
3. Create Clear, Reusable, and Maintainable Test Cases
- Practice: Write test cases that are easy to understand, reusable across different scenarios, and adaptable to changes in the product. If manual test cases are used, they should be well-justified and focused on areas where structured documentation provides significant value. Exploratory testing, combined with automation, can often be sufficient to achieve comprehensive coverage and adaptability in most cases.
- Why it’s essential: Reduces the time spent on rewriting or debugging test cases, ensuring testing remains efficient and scalable as the product evolves. A balanced approach—leveraging exploratory testing and automation—ensures the team remains agile while maintaining necessary documentation where it adds value.
- Example:
A QA team initially develops manual test cases for a user registration flow to capture key scenarios. Over time, they transition these test cases into automated scripts to improve efficiency and reduce repetitive manual work. Exploratory testing is used alongside automation to uncover unexpected behaviors, ensuring the registration feature remains adaptable to evolving user needs.
4. Embed QA Early in the Development Lifecycle
- Practice: Involve QA from the requirements and design phases to identify risks and clarify expectations before coding begins.
- Why it’s essential: Catching potential issues early reduces the cost and effort of fixing defects and ensures QA aligns with the team’s overall goals.
- Example:
During the planning phase of a new mobile app feature, QA collaborates with product managers and developers to clarify user expectations and edge cases, such as handling network failures. This proactive involvement ensures potential problem areas are addressed before development starts.
5. Foster a Collaborative Quality Culture
- Practice: Encourage collaboration between QA, developers, product managers, and other stakeholders to integrate quality into every phase of the project.
- Why it’s essential: Promotes shared ownership of quality, reducing silos and ensuring all team members contribute to delivering a high-quality product.
- Example:
QA collaborates with developers to define clear acceptance criteria and testing expectations in sprint planning meetings. Regular cross-functional discussions help ensure that quality considerations are incorporated at every stage, from development to release.
Why These Practices Work
- Strategic Focus: Emphasizes prioritization and collaboration to deliver the greatest impact with available resources.
- Modern and Balanced: Incorporates the benefits of automation while recognizing the value of human creativity through exploratory testing.
- Scalable and Future-Proof: Practices like early involvement and reusable test cases ensure QA efforts adapt as products and teams evolve.
🛠️ Let’s wrap it up
What’s one QA practice you swear by—no matter the project?
Share it below and let’s keep the quality conversation going.