QA Metrics You Should Share with Your External Dev Team

What are QA Metrics?

Before all else, let’s find out what those QA metrics are and why we need them that much. Quality assurance metrics, more known as QA metrics, are specific measurements used by software developers to estimate and track the progress, quality, and efficiency of a QA process. Unlike quality control (QC), which focuses on identifying and addressing issues, quality assurance encompasses activities aimed at preventing defects from arising in the first place.

QA test metrics play a pivotal role in assessing the health of the development process and the quality of the software product. These metrics help teams identify areas for improvement, track progress, and make informed decisions. The QA metrics examples are integral for evaluating and enhancing the QA process, aligning with the broader goal of ensuring the highest possible quality for an organization’s services or products.

Importance of QA Metrics for Testing Process

Unfortunately, the QA metric isn’t a magic wand that can make development flawless simply by being there. They are rather a useful tool that can allow you to look at the production process from a new and even better angle. Having all the information about the current state of the QA process at your fingertips will help understand different aspects of it. For instance, the duration and cost of testing, the amount of tested software, spotted and omitted defects, etc.

Therefore, you can detect not-so-obvious bugs, gaps or other issues, prevent them from appearing in the future, increase the productivity of the QA team and improve the final product to a certain level of quality. You would say it’s rather useful for a team lead to be aware of all the weak spots of the software engineering process so they can keep it in mind and plan further steps.

All the insights we achieve from such QA testing metrics can help improve a company’s testing procedure. And that will increase the efficiency of the company and ensure the quality of its completed products. For that reason, software QA metrics are vital for the QA process. They provide all the dependable data to understand the quality of our development strategy. Thus, we can check whether the project’s succeeding or failing to meet our expectations.

The Big Reveal: What Problems Can QA Testing Metrics Detect?

It’s not a secret that the sooner we discover a problem in an agile development project, the better for our project and nervous system. So far we are aware that quality assurance metrics help track QA team’s productivity. But what other information can we obtain during the testing stage that might put the project in danger?

Miscommunication

The most common hazard that can lead to failure is the lack of adequate communication. The most common hazard that can lead to failure is the lack of adequate communication. QA metrics require defining and articulating all the testing goals. Thus, they are capable of averting such situations between both dev and QA teams.

Poor process planning

The most common hazard that can lead to failure is the lack of adequate communication. QA metrics are capable of averting such situations between both dev and QA teams. And that is because metrics require all the testing goals to be defined and articulated.

Under-the-wire changes in product requirements

Nobody’s safe from force majeure situations, especially in agile development projects. Even the tiniest shifts in a codebase require complete retesting to assure the product’s quality and operation. Here come QA measures that include such factors and help create a specific schedule, considering possible last-minute changes.

The Main Types of QA Metrics to Consider

Different metrics are used for quality assurance measurement, making it harder to choose only the most important ones. Seriously, how do you know what metrics your organization needs?

There are two main types of QA testing metrics that will help you obtain information about estimated software quality: absolute QA metrics and derived QA metrics. Now, let’s get acquainted with testing metrics examples and work out why they are vital.

Absolute QA metrics

These test effectiveness metrics are based on the various measurements gathered during the development and performance of the test. Absolute QA metrics are helpful to infer other derivative metrics. They are tracked throughout the whole software testing life cycle: whether it’s a specific phase of the QA process or the ending of it. They include:

• The total number of completed test cases

• A number of passed/failed/blocked test cases

• A number of identified/accepted/rejected/deferred defects

• Several critical/high/medium/low defects

• Several determined and actual test hours

• A number of defects found during retesting

Derived QA metrics

To better understand the testing process, its effectiveness and the quality of under-test products, absolute QA metrics, unfortunately, aren’t enough. That’s where we use derived QA metrics. They are certain formulas, that will help to process the achieved information. The most commonly used test metrics examples are:

• Test effort metrics will provide all the information about the total number of tests designed, tests run, tests reviewed. They also will calculate the duration of the QA process and its efficiency. Thus, we can plan the future steps and receive the data that will be compared to the final test results. For instance, to get the number of tests in a specific period, you need to divide the number of tests run by the total time. That makes sense, right? And so on:

• Test effectiveness measures the quality and value of the test set. They calculate a percentage of the difference between the total number of defects found by a specific test and the total number of defects found for the project. Thus, the bigger percentage we get, the more effective our test is. The formula goes:

• Test coverage ensures that we are testing everything we need to, without missing anything important. This type of software quality assurance metric can show two things. How much of the product we have already tested and how many requirements we have already checked.

• Test economy are metrics that some would consider the most vital: it feels safer when you have both allocated and actual costs already calculated. The total cost of product testing depends on many resources, such as human resources, appliances, and infrastructure. Those QA performance metrics include: total allocated and amount of used cost for testing, budget variance (the difference between the allocated and used costs), schedule variance (the difference between the planned and actual time taken for testing) and average cost of bug fixing.

• Test team metrics will help you examine the amount of work assigned to each team member. In this way, you can look at inner processes and determine who needs help with tasks and who can help complete them. Hence, everyone involved in the testing procedure is aware of the current state of the process. Some key test team examples are: the amount of defects returned/opened bugs for retest/test cases allocated/test cases executed per team member.
• Defect distribution metrics can help to track and debug not all defects but the most pivotal ones. We can allocate them by different criteria, such as priority, severity, type of testing, tester type, functional area, the cause, tester accessibility, etc.

Tips for Choosing QA Metrics

Choosing relevant QA metrics and indicators is crucial for effectively assessing the quality of your software development process. Follow the following tips on how to select appropriate QA metrics:

• Align with objectives. Choose metrics that align with the overall goals of your project. Consider what aspects of quality are most critical for your specific context.
• Understand stakeholder requirements. Know the expectations of developers, testers, project managers, and end-users to ensure that selected metrics address the needs and concerns of all relevant parties.
• Consider process maturity. Take into account the maturity of your development and QA processes. Some metrics may be more relevant for mature processes, while others are suitable for continuous improvement initiatives.
• Keep it simple. Avoid overwhelming your team with a multitude of metrics and rather focus on a few key indicators that provide meaningful insights to simplify analysis and decision-making.
• Consider industry standards. Explore industry-standard metrics and benchmarks. Understanding common practices in your industry can help you identify relevant metrics and set realistic targets.
• Review and update regularly. Regularly review and update your set of metrics to reflect changes in project requirements, goals, and processes. Metrics that were relevant in the past may need adjustments as the project evolves.
• Focus on actionability: Choose metrics that are actionable. Metrics should provide insights that lead to concrete actions for improvement. If a metric doesn’t prompt action, it may not be the most valuable.

Final Thoughts

We really shouldn’t sit back and relax when it comes to software development quality metrics. Having quality assurance metrics as a part of the testing procedure will surely help us improve not only the testing alone: It also influences the software development lifecycle itself. QA testing metrics come in handy when we want to improve the performance, accuracy, quality, and effectiveness of our testing routine, which we desire to achieve all the time.

At Inoxoft we know like no other about the importance of a product’s quality and what role it plays in the company’s name and future development. Thus, our QA engineers are competent and skilled at managing test cases and designing test scripts, considering the final goal our clients would like to achieve. We won’t hesitate to report on defects, communicate problems in a dev team and find solutions to debug as soon as possible.

Consider Inoxoft to Improve Your Project’s QA Testing

Inoxoft is an experienced software testing company that specializes in automation testing services for web/mobile applications, builds software for iOS/Android platforms and uses technologies such as .Net, React, Python, Node.js, and React Native. We are confident about delivering the best quality products to our clients’ projects and are completely committed to their success. Seeing people, who already worked with us, coming back, is a valuable and encouraging indicator of our delivery quality.

Don’t forget to add Inoxoft to your list of reliable outsource partners, who offer reasonable prices, always suggest optimizing costs spent on development, and create a product that meets all expectations and matches business needs.

If you are interested in our quality automation company, feel free to fill out a contact form below. You can also learn more about QA automation testing services we suggest, read reviews from people who worked with us, and convenience yourself to become partners with Inoxoft!