I am experiencing some problems with the quality of testing on my project. I am asking for your help in a discussion to explore how we can improve. How does your organization work?
In our organization the tester is responsible for the planning, a test outline to demonstrate what they will test, actual test cases, test execution, and finally a test summary. Testers are included in project plans and discussions from day one, given ample education on the products and business processes they support, given advice on scenarios to test for, and in some cases even specific data to match those scenarios is developed.
The problem is despite all of the above assistance, the quality of initial test cases, adequacy of test data developed, and thoroughness of test execution do not meet expectations. It often feels as if the test team missed the mark on what the product is trying to accomplish. The team also fails to understand the importance and value of a good regression test and means to ensure product integration. As a result, to testing tasks are very slow to be completed, there is much rework in the test process itself and often system errors are caught by systems analyst, technical writers, and in the worse case, customers rather than the testers.
In trying to think ?how can we do better?? I?ve begun to question the roles in our team for testing. Specifically, are we putting too much responsibility on the testers. Should system analyst be writing test outlines, should technical writers develop the test cases, product champion do integration and acceptance testing, and tester literally only test the system?