Assessing The Performance of Your Testing and QA Team
What are the quality assurance metrics and how to measure the team performance? Find out here!
QA and testing teams are increasingly faced with strict deadlines and pressure to deliver on releases faster. Sometimes this can lead to an overburdened and burnt out QA and testing team, which can then contribute to undiscovered defects in the software. If you find that your QA and testing team have hit the wall with their testing performance, then you may want to assess their overall performance.
With that said, testing teams are made up of individuals with different, though compatible, skills. What one tester is lacking, another makes up for and vice versa. Though there are quantitative ways to gauge the success of your QA and testing teams, there is no easy answer. However, every software company’s success hinges on one key critical factor – delivering a high-quality product to its customers.
There are a lot of QA and testing metrics that are misleading and that is why, ultimately, understanding the context behind a number and using a bit of subjectivity is the most helpful. When objectivity is necessary, however, here are just some of the ways to evaluate performance. It’s not perfect, mind you, but it’s one way to analyze your QA and testing team.
1. Measure the number of bugs found per release
2. Number of automated test cases created and executed
3. The ratio of bugs being reported to bugs being fixed (quality bugs over ‘invalid’ bugs)
4. Number of bugs found in staging vs. production
5. The severity of bugs found in production
6. Number of bugs sent back for clarification (waste of one’s time)
7. Number of bugs over time (not just for one build, but overall – shows a broader understanding of mitigating issues early on)
8. Time to execute a test cycle
9. Turnaround time for fixing issues (quickness is necessary to keep the project moving forward)
10. Number of regression test gaps
These are just some of the ways to measure the performance of your QA and testing team; however, they should not be considered the quintessential element in helping you fully understand your team. Numbers can be misleading and they don’t necessarily tell the entire story, so it’s important not to fall into their trap. What they can provide, however, is a sign that further digging and investigating are required on the QA and testing manager’s part. In the end, we are human and it’s only reasonable that we require tangible evidence to better understand a situation. Just remember to keep in mind the missing context and fill in the gaps where needed.
