Quality assurance (QA) is crucial in the software development process. Without it, you might release a bug-ridden product that tarnishes your reputation and hurts your bottom line. But despite its importance, the QA process can be costly.

Putting too many resources towards QA could lead to a ballooning budget, and there's no way to guarantee you'll gain the appropriate ROI. There's a delicate balance between reducing QA costs while maintaining product integrity and quality.

If you're struggling to find ways to reduce QA costs, here are a few ideas.

Take Advantage of an Automated Testing Tool

Automation is the key to efficient and cost-effective QA. Right now, you might have an entire team of testers doing manual work. They may be performing click-through regression testing or working hard to maintain automated scripts.

Either way, it's not a good use of time or money. Free your team from those monotonous tasks and let an automated software testing tool take the reins. You can save money on manual labor costs while allowing your team to refocus their priorities on more impactful testing initiatives.

Create Well-Defined Testing Goals

One problem with QA is that many team leads and test managers go into the process without a clear goal. It's the "test until you see something wrong" approach. While that might seem practical enough, it's a colossal time-waster.

Every QA process should have clear goals and milestones. Define what you're testing, what possible risk issues present, when those results are due, etc. Those parameters can eliminate extraneous work and turn your QA efforts into a laser-focused endeavor.

Start Early

Here's another common mistake: Waiting until months before release to start testing. What happens if you find a glaring issue that forces you to redo months of work? No one wants to push back releases, but many companies have no choice because of poor QA timing.

Start early and test frequently. Create milestones and perform QA before moving on to the next stage of development. Not only will you catch issues before they become a massive problem, but the costs to address those bugs are usually much lower than they would be at a later stage.

Author Resource:-

Emily Clarke writes about automated software testing & UI testing automation tools. You can find her thoughts at automated software testing blog.