How do you add quality assurance to your SDLC?

1 Define QA goals and metrics

The first step to add QA to your SDLC is to define your QA goals and metrics - criteria to measure the quality of software and the effectiveness of QA activities. These should be in line with business objectives, user needs, and technical specifications. Examples of QA goals and metrics include functionality, usability, performance, security, and reliability. To collect and analyze your QA metrics, you can use test cases, test results, bug reports, user feedback, code reviews, code coverage, and performance monitoring tools and methods.

2 Integrate QA into your SDLC phases

The second step to add QA to your SDLC is to integrate QA into each phase of your process. This means that quality assurance activities should take place throughout the entire software development process, not just at the end. By incorporating QA into your SDLC phases, you can ensure that quality is built into your software from the start, issues are found and resolved quickly, and the cost and time of reworking and maintenance are reduced. For instance, during the planning stage, you should review and validate requirements, scope, and feasibility; define the QA strategy; and identify risks and dependencies that could affect software quality. When designing, review and verify the design and architecture of your software; create test cases, data, and environment based on the design; and ensure that it meets all requirements. During development, review and test code as you write it; use tools such as unit testing, code analysis, code review, etc.; and follow coding standards. When deploying, test in production environment to make sure it is compatible, stable, and secure; use tools like integration testing; system testing; acceptance testing; deployment automation. Finally, maintain your software by monitoring feedback from users and stakeholders; use regression testing; performance testing; security testing; bug fixing.

3 Communicate and collaborate with your team

The third step to add QA to your SDLC is to communicate and collaborate with your team. QA is not a solo activity, but a team effort that requires developers, testers, designers, managers, customers, and other stakeholders to share the same vision. By leveraging the skills, knowledge, and feedback of your team members, you can improve your software quality. For communication and collaboration tools and practices for QA, consider documentation, meetings, tools, and feedback. Document your QA processes, standards, guidelines, and results with clear language and format. Hold regular meetings with agendas, minutes, and action items. Use project management tools to track tasks and testing tools to automate tests. Use collaboration tools to share files and messages. And solicit feedback from your team and other sources to identify strengths and weaknesses of your software quality.

4 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?