Collaboration can never be successful without communication. It has a tendency to break or make a project.
Whether it is about testing and software testing team or between a manager and client.
However, now companies are moving towards agile technology that has managed to break down the walls between different departments.
But there can be times when one forget all about collaborations and work differently. It can be a difficult form to keep a track off. Hence, it is essential to follow up the operations and development of a project in order to test off the whole logic.
Importance of Communication
When it comes to development and testing, one is required to follow up an accurate path in terms of focus.
The testing team and developers have to complete their end of the deal as per the requirements of the business.
Developers are required to complete the functions that are derived in order to come up with something accurate. In addition to this, the main task of testing team is to implement and focus on the overall improvement of the development cycle. No matter how different their task might be, they have a common goal of having an error-free end product.
In order to achieve goals, one is required to follow up the path of agile technology that can contribute to collaborations. However, this is only possible with honest and open communication as per two-ways. For better understanding, you can consider it as the tyres of a cycle.
If a single of them is flat then you won’t be able to ride your bike. It requires a great deal of balance that can be attained with honest communication. In addition to this, one has to understand the whole concept of ROI, quality, speed, etc. that can be facilitated with communication only.
Here are five of the major ways in which one can attain collaboration between both the teams.
- Sharing Responsibilities
The whole project can never be successful if we depend on the only a single person.
The whole project requires the equal contribution of both teams – testing and development.
This is actually really simple to understand. When we talk about the agile world then there is nothing known as them or us.
It is a whole team that works on a single project to improve product quality.
Also Read: Salary Of a Software Tester 2019(USA,INDIA,CANADA,UK)
Hence, they are required to divide each and every responsibility among themselves.
The development team can come up with relevant and accurate unit test while coding.
This will help testers while testing an application since the test cases are already formed for them. On the other side, the tester will help to gate pass a project accurately.
It will allow them to work on the product with more responsibility and without changing any code.
This can be achieved if we follow up a meeting with everyone involved to get proper input before proceeding with the project.
- Collaboration of Tools
Another of the important factor that must be kept in mind while typing code is flexibility with tools that are used in collaboration.
The best form of communication that is proved is face-to-face. Since it allows one to work on the facial expression of an individual as well.
However, there are times when teams have to work together from a different location.
At that time, it becomes essential to come up with some alternative to ensure that you have attained goals.
It becomes difficult when members are not right in the next cabin or a walk away.
In such case, e-mails are potentially used by the member to be updated and for queries.
It can be spreadsheets or even online platform options allowing them to work on sharing basis.
In addition to this, remote access can be used widely to ensure that teams are working properly.
Hence, now is the time to get acquitted with a management application that is all over the internet.
A number of applications that allows an easy communication route for the members and be updated with work done.
These workflow management applications allow individuals to get through work or even assign it to others.
They have scalable, readable, maintained and flexible features intact.
Earlier, businesses were dependent on Skype but now there are applications such as Trello and Wrike that have taken it to a top notch.
In addition to this, it is now easy to be on the same page as other with these applications.
- Visibility of activities
Another of the essential factor of collaboration is visibility. It will also have a huge impact on the trust of the teammates.
It will expand the agility in the team. The point is that you must not simply assume what others know.
It is possible that some of the members have no idea why you have added on a new function.
Hence, it is better to be visible at every single step. If you are adding something then let them know or what standards are used. The best thing for a tester to do is to have a review session with developers to have a proper outcome format.
On sharing the work, it will generate an upstream towards the whole work mode.
It will influence the testing scope at a huge rate. Not only developers, but stakeholder or architects can be life saviour when it comes to working on the product.
They will give their input and you might know what more is to expect out of this whole system. This will allow deep scrutinizing of product.
- Critical Bugs – Find and Fix
When it comes to finding bugs, the best thing to follow is to prioritize the whole system.
It will give you an easy adoption to where to start and how to run off test cases.
In addition to this, the product managers can focus on the goals of the business. This will help in keeping our focus on finding out bugs that can be fixed up by testers or developers.
In order to start this, teams can make a list of whole features as per their priority.
The one that is most important can come at the top followed by others.
It will give an idea to the departments about their test cases. Also, one can work on the application as per the customer point of view.
It is a way to get a bigger picture of the complete product. They will find out the solutions to the points that are more essential than the one that is not.
It will also help in being working out in the single aspect with not worrying about the other one.
- Battles to win
If we try to fight off every single threat that is present in the product that you can forget about it.
This is a difficult task when we try to work on all the bugs and trying to eliminate it.
You need to know which bugs can be resolved on your end while leaving others for your team members.
In addition to this, one must know what is worth their time.
Testing already works on a strict time frame and hence not even a second must be wasted on something that you have no idea about.
Also, it is possible that everyone is working on the points that are not even important.
The most essential aspect that will fall with it is the red line form. You need to make a line for you or the whole team.
It will determine where you must keep your focus on. It will also help in determining the essential interactions point on the product end.
For instance, usability, load time, etc. are major points.
If you are concern about this then you can have a whole team just to fight these defects only.
This will take the mind of developers and testers off them and the defect team can work on them with some predefined guidelines.
It will only help you to make sure that there are no other major points that can be a downfall for the application.
In addition to this, everyone will be focused on their own task with no distractions.
Bonus Point – Test Driven Development and Business Driven Development are also a major part of the whole development and testing cycle.
One must be specific while forming testing cases which will be used by the developers.
After the implementation of the code, these cases can work together with the unit testing mode in order to come up with accurate results.
This will cover up all the requirements at the business end and also give an idea of where to end the whole process.
You cannot depend on a single end of the rope to make sure that you will not fall.
The other end must be tightly bounded to something to prevent a fall. Similarly, to work on a stead road, you need to take an initiative.
This will determine a route with the improvement in the whole collaboration system.