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Here are three versions of QA Analyst role introduction to the customer. Please use the one which is more suitable for the customer experience level - based on who will do the testing on the customer side and how much experience he has with IT projects.

Please choose the right one from 3 options below:

  1. The customer is experienced with IT projects and UAT testing will be done by guys experienced in software testing

  2. The customer is inexperienced with IT projects and UAT testing will be done by business users mostly without any experience in testing.

  3. The customer needs more info about QA Analyst role and testing on the project

Situation 1: The customer is experienced with IT projects and UAT testing

The role and responsibilities of the QA

The QA is an expert on software testing and they are the Single Point Of Contact for communication about testing related issues. The main responsibilities of the QA Analyst on the project are:

  • Test the solution on Pricefx side and report bugs

  • Prepare key internal testing documentation – Test Plan, Test Report, Test Cases, Bug Reports

  • Identify issues and possible inconsistencies between requirements and solution

  • Help to prepare to UAT testing and go smoothly through UAT phase

  • Reduce risk of the main issues to be found during UAT

  • Retesting issues found by the customer and help communicate more effectively with the Pricefx project team about them

How can QAs help during the project

They are clarifying user stories and acceptance criteria, ensuring a shared understanding of the objectives. Moving into the Feature Sprints, QAs make sure that thorough testing is aligned with agreed-upon user stories and acceptance criteria, minimizing the risk of stumbling upon issues during subsequent testing phases.

The QA are also in charge of simplifying the communication with the Pricefx project team about testing and issues that need discussing.

Moreover, the QA will check the customer’s expectations against the submitted user stories and will also lead the software demos during the Feature Sprints.

Aspects worth considering

It is worth reminding the customer that no software is bug free (because of data and software complexity, limited time for testing), but with a QA Analyst on the project, the risk a major bug will be found during UAT or later in production is reduced. The customer will also benefit from help during Feature Sprints testing with the assistance of a QA, as well as a smoother communication with the Pricefx project team. Collaboratively, these aspects will significantly shorten the time between when issues are found and their fixing and software deployment.

Situation 2: The customer is inexperienced with IT projects and UAT testing

UAT testing will be done by business users mostly without any experience in testing. Therefore the possibility the customer will need more help with UAT preparation and even explaining basic things about software testing is obviously higher.

Who is the QA Analyst and what are their responsibilities

The QA is an expert on software testing and they are the Single Point Of Contact for communication about testing related issues. They can also discuss software testing matters with business users doing testing on the customer’s side.

The main responsibilities of the QA Analyst on the project are:

  • all mentioned in Situation 1

  • Help testers understand basic terminology and process for software testing during the project

They are clarifying user stories and acceptance criteria, ensuring a shared understanding of the objectives. Moving into the Feature Sprints, QAs make sure that thorough testing is aligned with agreed-upon user stories and acceptance criteria, minimizing the risk of stumbling upon issues during subsequent testing phases.

The QA are also in charge of simplifying the communication with the Pricefx project team about testing and issues that need discussing.

Moreover, the QA will check the customer’s expectations against the submitted user stories and will also lead the software demos during the Feature Sprints.

Aspects worth considering

All that have been mentioned above in Situation 1 along with the fact that QA Analyst can help the customer’s business users in role of testers to gain mandatory software testing knowledge and test the delivered solution properly.

Situation 3: The customer needs more info about QA Analyst role and testing on the project

Note that all the information presented above still applies to this situation. Moreover, if there is a deeper lack of knowledge on the process and more information is requested by the customer, this section aims to shed further light on the matter.

QA Analyst on the project - options

At Pricefx we understand that projects have different complexities and also customer maturity with testing can be very different, therefore allocation for QA Analyst on the project and also their real help on the project can be very different.

There are different expected options and QA Analyst levels of assistance for different projects:

Low support

  • For projects with low complexity and when the customer is experienced with software testing

  • Main purpose of testing is to find most critical issues during development before the software is tested by the customer

  • QA Analyst will be focused on functionality testing of user stories during Feature Sprints – positive scenarios and basic negative scenarios

  • Test strategy and test scenarios will be created for internal usage of Pricefx project team

  • No usage of test management tool

  • No support for the customer is expected in this option

    • No training for the customer’s testers

    • QA Analyst is not SPOC for testing related issues

    • QA Analyst is not sharing our experience with testing on the project

    • No support for UAT testing for the customer

Medium support

  • For projects with medium complexity and when the customer has some experience with software testing

  • Main purpose of testing is to find most critical issues during development before the software is tested by the customer and help the customer be ready for UAT testing.

  • QA Analyst will be focused on functionality testing of user stories during Feature Sprints – positive scenarios and basic negative scenarios

  • Test strategy and test scenarios will be created, can be shared with the customer

  • No usage of test management tool

  • Partial support for the customer is expected in this option

    • QA Analyst can share Pricefx experience with testing on the project

    • QA Analyst is helping the customer to be ready for UAT testing (sharing tips for UAT preparation and organization, templates for UAT test cases, tips for effective bug reporting)

    • QA Analyst is not SPOC for testing related issues

    • No training for the customer’s testers

Full support

  • For projects with high complexity and when the customer has low experience with software testing. Often business users do the testing on the customer site.

  • Main purpose of testing is to find most critical and high issues during development before the software is tested by the customer and help the customer be ready for UAT testing and simplify communication with Pfx team .

  • QA Analyst will be focused on functionality testing of user stories during Feature Sprints – positive scenarios, negative scenarios, check basic performance

  • Test strategy and test scenarios will be created, can be shared with the customer

  • Test management tool (X-Ray) is used during Feature Sprints and can be used by the customer during UAT testing

  • Full support for the customer in this option

    • QA Analyst is sharing our experience with testing on the project

    • QA Analyst is helping the customer to be ready for UAT testing (sharing tips for UAT preparation and organization, templates for UAT test cases, tips for effective bug reporting)

    • QA Analyst is SPOC for testing related issues to make communication with Pfx project team more effective

    • Training for the customer’s testers about software testing basic principles is possible

Truths and myths about software testing

 Myth#1: Everybody can be a tester

Software tester is another role in software development process – like project manager or developer. Similarly like the other roles, being a good tester requires a set of skills and a mindset not everybody has. It requires analytical skills to understand the software, technical skills to understand details of the solution, thoroughness, critical thinking but seeing the big picture at the same time, often also to understand business of the customer and on top of that being a good communicator, understand the project development process. So everybody can test the software somehow, but it doesn’t mean his testing will be effective, relevant, he will find the most important issues as soon as possible and that he really covers all scenarios needed for acceptance decision. Based on our experience we know business users often do testing for the customer without any experience with software testing. We know they know the business very well, but they could be confused by software testing without any advice, so we offer them basic training and advice from our QA Analyst as optional. With this help they should be able to perform UAT testing successfully.

 Myth#2: There will be zero bugs in software after testing

Unfortunately, this is not possible to guarantee and there are several reasons for that. Software is very complex in these days and there is only limited time for software testing on the project. Therefore software testers are usually focused on more important scenarios first (used in real life most often) and test less important scenarios later. No customer would pay for testing all possible scenarios, therefore software testers use prioritization and different methods to identify the most critical scenarios for testing and find all important information about software as soon as possible.

 Truth#1: Fixing the bug is cheaper when it is found at the beginning of the project

There are many articles about this topic (like https://deepsource.io/blog/exponential-cost-of-fixing-bugs/ ) and this is definitely one of the reasons why software testing is so important especially during development phase. Usually, there are two sources of bugs – first one is an error in development, the second one is incorrectly defined requirement. Both can be found during development (in our case Feature Sprints) and save a lot of money, because during development the whole team is ready for fixing the bug.

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