Optimizing Software Quality: 4 Effective Strategies

You don’t want to risk waiting for your customers to discover issues with your software quality. Moreover, you don’t want to move from one critical step to the next in the software development life cycle without ensuring quality control.

There is no room for quality-related errors today. Business leaders have a broad range of software options, so software development companies must implement quality control best practices into each development step. Keeping user experience (UX) accessibility, usability, and satisfaction at the forefront can help you develop your quality control metrics and processes.

Tough competition equals no room for errors, so everyone has to stay sharp. Let’s discuss quality control and why and how you should implement it into your software development life cycle.

What is quality control?

Quality control (QC) is “a procedure or set of procedures” that determines and ensures the quality of a manufactured production — specifically a digital product for our purposes — at pre-selected points in the development life cycle.

At the core, quality control focuses on delivering value to a customer, meeting and exceeding their expectations of the digital product required by the product owner.

Software development team use quality control to test products with predetermined metrics to ensure they meet a defined standard.

By developing and relying on a consistent quality control process, a software-development provider can evaluate, maintain and improve product quality long before it’s time for deploying it under the production environment.

Ideally, your customers never need to know about any inconsistencies, bugs, flaws, and even occasional failures along the way, thanks to solid quality control standards and best development and testing practices.

Two primary goals of quality control

Understanding the goals of your quality control is crucial. Here are two goals to remember when designing your metrics for testing:

Early identification of any bugs or inconsistencies you might find in each iteration of the build.
Ensure the parts, phases, and finished digital products are as uniform as possible and function consistently and as required.

Different types of quality control you can employ

Quality control can mean different things in different environments.

Here are some different types of quality control methods and processes you might consider using:

Process Control. This type of QC is much what you might think it is, based on the name. Here, processes are monitored and tweaked to ensure quality and performance. It is usually a technical process enlisting feedback loops, and metrics to achieve consistency and reliability.
Process Protocol. Many software development companies use process protocols, relying on mapping methodologies to improve the design and implementation processes. This method is so effective because you create evaluative indicators for each step to prevent proceeding with problems.
Control Charts. With control charts, you use a graph or chart to study how your processes develop and change over time. Within the charts, you’ll use statistics and specifics about your manufacturing and development processes to analyze your product and ensure it is “in control.”
Acceptance Sampling. This type of QC testing is a statistical measure used in QC processes. It allows your business to determine the quality of batches of products by selecting a specified number to test at a time, which serves as a baseline for quality for the group of products.
Computer Vision Algorithms. One innovative QC testing methodology is performed by setting up a fixed camera on a product packaging line, automating the calculating process of potential success or product yield. The goal is to increase the sample base and boost the expert group work.

You might consider several other QC processes, including unit testing, component testing, end-to-end testing, performance testing, and regression testing.

4 Ways to implement quality control into your software development life cycle

Now that you have an expansive range of QC & testing process options, it’s time to start implementing quality control into your software development projects.

Here are four ways to ensure quality and save resources while software building.

1. Select the QC testing process that works for your digital product

Whether you choose one of the QC testing processes laid out above or another, it’s essential to make your choice and stick with it throughout each project. If you use more than one, development and testing teams to manage each to ensure adherence to testing standards and transparent, helpful results you can use to move forward or remediate issues and bugs.

2. Determine benchmarks at testing points

Start the QC process by determining and defining the benchmarks for the software as a whole and per different testing views. Work with your team, going over the details and goals of the project. Consider that software quality is the responsibility of the entire team. You know the ideal outcomes you want for your software and how to get there throughout a testing strategy, so lay out points for testing to help you achieve the ideal quality for the digital product.

3. Define acceptable degrees of deviation

If you plan to allow any degree of deviation from your ideal, it’s crucial that you define the degree in advance. The more you allow a variance from your standard at each point in the development process, the more risk you incur as your project proceeds. These deviations can add up across the scope of the project, leaving your final software build lacking in quality and reliability. Depending on the severity of the final deviation, it might cost you more money, time, and human resources if you let variances slip along the way.

4. Develop a remediation strategy and timeline

Once you find a bug, you need a bug-fixing strategy to make corrections and get the project back online for success. Here are some things you can do:

Identify any issues or bugs in question.
Examine the deviations you find during your test.
At the outset, refer to your benchmarks and ideals set for each point in the process to determine the necessary steps to remediate the issue. Understand what you’re looking for and how to fix it to stay true to the process.
Identify dates and timeliness with which you must comply to keep the project on track for success.
Make the necessary remediation.
Re-test to ensure successful remediation.
Proceed with your project until the next or final testing phase.

Do you need quality control support for your software development life cycle?

To boost customer satisfaction, reduce waste and excessive costs, minimize the variance of reliability and outcomes, and prevent the existence of issues and bugs from the beginning, you need solid QC testing for your software products.

Our team at Baufest is here to offer more insights and support to ensure the outcome you and your customers demand every time.