Introduction:
Requirement analysis is the foundation of a successful software development project, whether it is Agile or Waterfall. As you know, many software development projects face common challenges such as delayed timelines and budget overruns. In this whitepaper, we will discuss how the involvement of the Software Quality Assurance team in the early phases of SDLC helps as a cost-effective strategy.
In most Agile development projects, the SQA team has a chance to be involved in the requirement analysis phase. We have seen how our contributions have affected such projects compared to those where we started from the middle. In such projects, when we point out the best practices, improvements, and workarounds, sometimes those projects are not in a suitable status to consider. Because making such improvements in the latter stage is costly. When all the things are integrated, one single change affects many areas. Therefore, changing something in the latter stage will not be possible at all even though the business is interested in it.
Why SQA team be involved in the requirement designing phase of SDLC?
Cost Efficiency via validating the requirements early: When the product owners work on the requirements, they will focus on how to bring the business needs as the requirements. Business analysts will focus on capturing all the requirements and developers will focus on how to implement it as software. When the test teams review requirements, they will focus on validating the requirements. Apart from the validation, they will identify necessary improvements that can complete the requirements. When the QAs are involved in this requirement designing phase, they have higher chances to validate and complete the requirements by pointing out their views. If the particular requirement is not a completed one, then its respective changes have to be addressed later. Sometimes as change requests. As you know, all of these changes require additional budget.
Based on their experience, they know what needs to be included in a particular feature. Taking that input gives everyone a very good understanding of the completeness, accuracy, and integration of the requirement.
For example, if we consider a login function of a website, and let's say the requirement was given as only valid users should be able to login with valid credentials, and others' login should be restricted. In that case, if it has not been communicated about the company password policy and if it was limited to the expected format of the password, then that development needs to be considered later. If that password policy thing is embedded later, then both teams have to work on it again. The testing team should check the accuracy of passwords with many data not focusing on the implementation of the password policy but also on the initial implementation done.
Otherwise, it will communicate as a system limitation in a later stage and it also requires a second round of effort. Therefore, if you think about the effort, both teams have made additional effort because that requirement was not completed. If that was validated and completed with the inputs of the QA team, you can see how that be a cost-effective strategy. Even though it seems like a small thing for this scenario, applying the same strategy to complex business features will see huge benefits.
Key roles SQA plays in early SDLC phases:
To give further explanation on this, let's see what roles SQAs can play in the Requirement analysis phase.
1. As requirements validators - Under this role, they will participate in the discussions and get the business idea about what they want from the system. From that step onwards, they can start validating the requirements by adding their points. For example, if the business needs to have about 1000 concurrent users, SQAs will point out how the resources should be optimized to have a better performance, what coding practices will reduce the performance issues, etc... Therefore, SQAs have a chance to consider about the requirements in different aspects and let the developers go with an optimized solution from the first place.
2. As UI optimizers - As they have worked on many UI interfaces, letting them point out their ideas at the design levels will be a great way. Because if they can point out what the UI should look like, and how it should be a user-friendly design across different devices, then they won't have any disagreements about the UI design after the implementation.
3. As Risk mitigators - When going through the analysis phase, they can identify what kind of risks will be there. Letting the SQAs contribute to this is a great strategy. Otherwise, this will be available in the Test plan and most of the time it won't be possible to work on certain mitigations.
Benefits of SQA’s early feedback:
Involving SQAs in the early SDLC is a good strategy for cost reductions. If you see the project's big picture and how its development and testing cycles work, you can identify how this brings cost benefits. Apart from that, collaboration among the teams is another advantage of this involvement. Because the development team has a chance to see and identify how SQAs' points of view. How SQAs will think? Which testing types will be considered? What are the best practices they are keen on when doing different testing types? What coding practices and hardware resource utilization the Dev should think about especially when there are plans to do automation and performance testing? Otherwise, we have seen many conflicts among the teams when SQA suggests a new thing or brings something up during the testing cycles. Therefore, their involvement from the beginning helps keep every stakeholder on the same page.
Conclusion:
The impact of involving QA in early SDLC phases as a transformative approach that aligns with modern software development needs. Reiterate that early SQA involvement helps deliver high-quality software on time and within budget, benefitting both development teams and end-users. This way fosters a team culture where quality is everyone’s responsibility, not just SQA’s. This way will encourage developers to think of potential issues and edge cases as they code, with SQA as their quality partner.
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