Question

Software testing occurs near the end of the programming process. Because of this, if a project falls behind schedule, testing time is often reduced. Discuss the possible impacts of less-than-thorough testing. Topics might include company reputation, customer dissatisfaction, the company’s ability to sell new or updated products, etc. Discuss which is worse: releasing a product late or releasing it on time without fully testing it. "please answer based on arguments"

Answer 1

Software Testing: Software testing is an important phase in software development life cycle which ensures that the software developed is as per the customer requirements and producing the expected output for every input provided to it.

Testing plan: The testing of the software is planned in the initial days of the software schedule. The testing of the software includes various facts as below:

1. List the different types of database to be tested and supported by the software.
2. List the different types of browsers to be tested and supported by the software.
3. List the different operating systems to be tested and supported by the software.

In general case, the plan is made to perform the testing on all features and facts listed above.

Testing phase if project falling behind schedule: Whenever the project falls behind the schedule, the testing time is often reduced in the life cycle. This practice generally reduces the quality of the software. The below process can be followed to get the testing done in less time:

1. Only high level test cases are executed, e.g. Low level test cases are skipped in execution
2. Testing is not performed on all data bases, e.g. if the software supports sql, oracle, postgis. It may happen that testing is performed only on oracle database.
3. Testing is not performed on all the supported browsers in case of web application e.g. only Chrome is tested but Mozila Firefox, Safari and other browsers are skipped partially or completely.
4. Testing is not performed for different supported operating systems e.g. only Windows is tested thoroughly.
5. Do no perform the testing on the features less likely to be used by the customers.

Impact of less-than-thorough-testing: If the testing is not performed as per its plan, it directly impacts the customer as well as the company. Below are the impacts of performing less testing:

1. Company Reputation: When a company releases product which is not having its thorough testing report, it may impact their future contracts with the customers available in the market. The customers often check the products released by the company in past and the testing report shared with theproduct. If the software was not testing thoroughly, it will not have complete test report with it for the customer, which will leave negative impact and reduce the chances to get new contracts.
2. Customer Dissatisfaction: Consider the example when due to lack of time, software was not tested on Edge browser, but in planning it was promised by the company that software will support Edge as well. There exist one customer who is only using Edge for the software and as the software was not tested on the same browser, it has lots of undiscovered bugs in it. It will make the customer unsatisfied with the product.
3. Difficulty to sell new updates: If the company has already sold software which was not tested thoroughly and have lots of defects in it. The Company will find it difficult to convenience the customers to purchase the updates on the software.
4. Ability to sell new products: When customer is unsatisfied with the deliveries made by the company, they will not buy new product. The other customers will also follow the reviews by old customers. Eventually, when the company delivers a product with less testing , it will become for the company to sell new product.
5. More number of defects from customer: If a software is release without thorough testing, the customer will face defects in the product and report multiple defects to the company.
6. Missing requirements: When software is not tested thoroughly, it may happen that some requirements are not implemented in it.

Releasing product late OR on time with less testing:

Software delivery dates are decided in the initial phase of the software development after a mutual discussion between customer and Development Company. An idle company should meet all the deadlines and release the product on time.

But when the project development is lacking behind the schedule, it is advisable to get a new deadline from the customer giving them the valid explanation as releasing the product with less testing can prof worst for the company.

The company should handle the situation by following the below process:

1. Informing technical reasons of falling behind the schedule: Company should detail the technical reasons due to which the development was not done on time. This will help the customer to understand the situation at development side and challenges the development team faced OR facing in the development.
2. Share the implemented requirements: Company should share the status of requirements which are implemented in the software till now.
3. Release software with few requirements: As per requirement from customer, it may happen that the customer wants the product on time with some of the requirements not implemented in the product. In this case, company can stop further development and start the testing of the software to make the timely delivery.
4. Get a new deadline: The Company should ask the customer to provide a new deadline for the product release so that they can release a quality product with complete testing performed in it.