How can you ensure software quality under stress?

Rigorous performance testing. Robust error handling. Continuous monitoring. Load balancing mechanisms. Scalability planning for peak usage.

- Have a right mindset about what is achievable and what isn't !! - Start focusing on those items that can be delivered in the given timeline. - Divide the given work into modules and complete them by attacking most priority modules first. - Follow strict agile so that you fail quickly. - Write proper unit and integration testing so that at module level the product works well. - Have QA/Tester involved through out development cycle, so that there is a possibility of doing Test Driven Development (TDD)

Prioritize Testing Activities: Risk-Based Testing: Clear Communication: Define Clear Goals: Collaboration with Development: Test Automation: Regression Testing Suite: Flexible Test Plans: Time Management: Continuous Feedback: Cross-Training: Stress Testing for the Team: Post-Release Monitoring: Learn and Improve: Encourage Creativity: By adopting these strategies, a testing team can navigate stress situations more effectively while maintaining a focus on software quality. Open communication, efficient processes, and a proactive approach to testing can contribute to successful outcomes even in challenging circumstances.

Define Performance Requirements: Clearly define performance requirements early in the development process. Specify acceptable response times, throughput, and other relevant metrics. Use Automated Testing Tools: Employ performance testing tools such as JMeter, Gatling, Apache Benchmark, or Locust to simulate various stress scenarios. Automate stress tests to ensure consistency and repeatability. Identify Critical Scenarios: Analyze and identify critical usage scenarios that could lead to stress on the system. Prioritize testing based on these critical scenarios. Test with Realistic Data: Use realistic data sets that reflect the actual production environment.

Agile practices lead to a good planning exercise. some tips to keep in mind with Agile: - Balance between team velocity and quality (delivering more x delivering better code) - If you're introducing new technology or complex solutions, save time for surprises or unplanned issues - Use the right mechanisms to define and prioritize stories/features - consider historical data - that's the most critical activity. - Focus on the streamline solution, don't complicate; deliver what was requested

Why does it always seem that the problem that needs to be solved is developing quality software? Why not solve the stress problem? In my experience creating a stress free environment is easier, but it takes focus, discipline and a culture of understanding real priorities.

Following best practices for testing is crucial. Even minimal unit and integration tests add up over time and raises the quality of the code base tremendously. This is often hard to do under stress. But it is in the teams best interest to stress a minimum set of development, documentation, and testing practices.

Some things I’ve found helpful: - Define and effectively communicate quality standards and guidelines to the development team. This includes coding standards, documentation procedures, and general quality requirements. - Encourage developers, testers, and other stakeholders to collaborate and work together. Quality is a collective responsibility. - Build a quality culture in software development.

Dev should practice using tools to improve code quality (SonarQube), reduce OWASP vulnerabilities (DAST), ?performance testing (JMeter), Dev Unit Testing (JUnit),Code review tools(Gerrit), and test Automation (Selenium). All these tools and practicing it as a routine in agile/sprint will help to improve team productivity and assist management in funding at a later stage. Log monitoring and Database view access is a must for developers as that will help the team to triage issues and fix them promptly.

Adhere to established software development methodologies and coding standards. This helps create maintainable and robust code that can handle unexpected situations.

The leakage of bugs starts from unit level. Ensure to have all the scenarios covered with unit test including positive, negative, error and edge scenarios. It is always recommended to have a minimum of unit, integration and regression testing after each feature development to ensure the quality of deliverables

Implement a comprehensive testing strategy that involves unit testing, integration testing, and system testing. Testing early and frequently helps identify and resolve issues early on, preventing them from snowballing into larger problems later in the development cycle. Continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD) pipelines can automate testing processes, ensuring that software quality is maintained throughout the development lifecycle.

Not testing is expensive, but testing too much is also expensive. How much testing is enough to ensure quality? Do we need to fix all defects? We all know it's important to test, but in the other hand, we must be agile and respond to the market and time pressures. The best options is to use risk based analysis - because there'll never be a situation completely out of risk. Have a good mitigation plan for the unfixed bugs, and remediate them as a tech debt for future enhancements.

Testing early and often is a great habit, but in my experience, the hard part is identifying and resolving the test debt under stress before it is too late. When things get ugly, and the teams start to be swamped in bug or data fixes, it can feel like this habit is an inaccessible goal. Setting the priority and investing in system testing will pay back a hundredfold as long as the team can find a way to make testing cheap, quick, and accessible. Automation is critical but not always the first step to excellent code quality. The most successful team I've worked with in this aspect started by documenting the tests that mattered and doing them manually at the right time in the developer's inner loop before automating them.

During development of enterprise level software's its always noted that the entire team will be under immense pressure of deadlines. Planning and executing according to the plan is the key. If we can plan the development activity in such a way that we can test MVP's at regular intervals and do integration testing at regular intervals, the product will be bug free to a larger extent. Every aspect of testing(Unit,integration,regression,smoke,uat) should be done as many times as possible and as frequent as possible for better quality of the product

In any organization, there should be a practice of 360 degree review. Anyone can review anyone's code. There should not be any junior-senior hierarchy for code review. This will boost confidence in everyone and people will be more open to feedback. As humans, we will make mistakes. Everyone has a different perspective, so not necessarily it will be a mistake but a different approach for the same problem which might be much more optimized. There should be no shame in accepting one's mistake. And in stressful times you can always be confident that your reviewer has your back. If you missed something the reviewer will help you realize and rectify it. Remember, feedback is not a negative thing but an opportunity to make yourself better.

As you hit milestone for project, do share with the community to dogfood or fish food the feature so you can gather feedback and signals early on in the process to mitigate any bugs

Sprint demos: commit to them, always surface, never cancel them. Show what's been done at regularly scheduled intervals (for example, every 3 weeks, every Sprint close). Don't leave it to the stakeholders to have to ask. Bake it into the schedule. Experienced teams know the downsides: leadership may get the impression that the project is behind, burndown isn't reported appropriately, the team isn't making progress against the Backlog. That feedback is also part of the process. Never go dark on your stakeholders because of this possibility: that will only prove a point you didn't intend to make. Be ready with data points, not excuses. Stand tall, be prepared and demo the software regularly.

Taking the feedback from team can give good results. Apart from continuous testing and continuous Integration, continuous review also required for workproducts. There should be standard checklist to perform the review and it is useful to avoid the basic mistakes. Review gives different perspective and useful for getting different ideas. 1. Self review: Developer should review their own work and make sure that it as per the requirement. 2. Peer review: This review will be done by other team members. 3. Mandatory review: This review should be done by Tech lead or Architect. This review makes sure the outcome is as per the requirements and it satisfies the design. 4. Group review: In this all team members sit together and review the outcome.

You can use various tools to help get the feedback you need. For example if you need feedback on some design approach, it’s good to write a quick 1-pager to explain the motivation and what you proposing, include pictures if possible to convey the message. I particularly like sequence diagrams as they help to show the flow of information in a structured and easy to understand way. I often like to socialize my proposal early on with some peers in an informal setting such as one on one meetings or over coffee so that when we go to a formal review meeting later on, it does not take everyone by surprise.

A good manager will be aware of how the team is doing stress wise and offer whatever is needed If that means changing the schedule then they will support that

Define your working hours. It's important, especially if you're working from home where working hours bleed into personal space. Do not use your official laptop for personal work and likewise do not use your personal laptop for official work. Keep the two separate, that way you can maintain focus to do what's important while using the device necessary for doing it. Clear out your desk, only keep work related stuffs on it, remove the distractions and take necessary breaks.

Always prioritise your well-being as your efficiency will be greatly affected if you are stressed or burnt out. When your physical and mental health are at optimal levels, your work will reflect that and you will be able to perform better. Reduce meetings that aren't a necessity. Rest your eyes often. Stretch for a bit after every focused work session. Investing in your health will give you an edge in the long run.

Take care of your health, especially your spine and mental health. If you're healthy, you can do many things. But if not, your main focus will be on getting better. In software development, many people make mistakes like sitting for too long, eating poorly, and having irregular sleep. This can cause problems. I suggest using the Pomodoro technique, which I also try to follow. It's about working for 25 minutes, then taking a 5-minute break to stand up and move. After 3 or 4 of these sessions, take a longer break. This helps increase productivity and is better for your health. Another method I'm adopting is the 80/20 principle. It's about focusing more on tasks that have the biggest impact, as they can lead to 80% of the results.

Taking care of yourself is also turning off work you, turning off your work phone (if you have one), and taking a vacation. Get away and recharge, work can normally always wait because at the end of the day, your mind, body, and family matter more.

Working under stress should be an exception, not a rule. You may be able to compensate for a while, especially if you are young, but prolonged stress always eventually leads to bad outcomes if left unadressed. If you are constantly working under stress, this probably indicates some things are fundamentally broken in your work environment, or there might be a mismatch between you and your work environment. (For instance, many people prefer to work from home, while some others may prefer going to an office.) You may or may not be in a position to help solve or mitigate those problems, and you may or may not be in a position to go work in a better work environment. Remember that different people react to and manage stress differently.

We just onboarded a new software engineer. His first surprise was extensive documentation with granular specifications for functions that make up the application modules based on a well laid out design using standard engineering approach. This enabled him onboard in less than 10 days into very complex code without talking to anyone. He says that is the first time this has happened in his career. He noticed a potential edge case problem in the implementation. Upon review of the design he spotted the flaw - the design was correct but the implementation deviated slightly and that caused the potential edge case. The extensive design provided the bandwidth for the engineer to see the big picture and spot the error. Detailed design is key.

There is good pressure that adds focus. There is bad pressure that causes errors. Applying just the right amount of pressure is the hallmark of good leaders. Keeping cool (managing stress) under pressure is the hallmark of resilient people.

Sometimes working under stress is good too. It yields the best results out of a person if they are good at planning and communication. Planning or execution plays a vital role in such situations, time is very crucial and one must plan their resources accordingly and effectively. Besides planning communication is also an essential element in stressful situations. Once the person has planned their flow of execution it should be communicated well to the stakeholders holders. If there is any change in course of plan then that too should be communicated as well to keep the expectations realistic.

Establish an independent body, accountable for quality, at board level. This will ensure programme delivery, never compromises on quality, without pragmatic adjustments to product scope. In addition, establish communication channels at all levels, with plenty of opportunity to skip hierarchical levels. Pragmatism and regular open communication is key. Really challenge the scope with an empirical approach and frequent demonstrations.