Cost of Quality in Software Testing

There is cost of activity in every project, it should have business value and software testing is no exception. To optimize its business value, test managers should optimize testing appropriately. There should not be unnecessary testing otherwise it causes unnecessary delays and ends up incurring more costs. Also, there should not be incomplete or too less testing otherwise, there may be a chance of defective products to be handed to the end users. Therefore, software testing should be done appropriately.

Cost of Quality :
It is the most established, effective measure of quantifying and calculating the business value of testing. There are four categories to measure cost of quality: Prevention costs, Detection costs, Internal failure costs, and External failure costs.

These are explained as follows below.

1. Prevention costs include cost of training developers on writing secure and easily maintainable code
2. Detection costs include the cost of creating test cases, setting up testing environments, revisiting testing requirements.
3. Internal failure costs include costs incurred in fixing defects just before delivery.
4. External failure costs include product support costs incurred by delivering poor quality software.

Major parts of total cost are detecting defects and internal failure cost. But, these costs less than external failure costs. That’s why testing provides good business value.

Business value of software testing :
Test manager has responsibility to identify the business value and provide communications between teams and senior management. It concerns the cost of quality.

To deliver business value, these are some of the measurable ways, like

1. Detecting defects
2. Documenting defects
3. Status reports and test metrics on project progress
4. Status reports on process implementation and product development
5. Increasing confidence in product quality
6. Legal liabilities
7. Decreasing risks
8. Ensuring predictable product
9. Enhancing reputation for product
10. Enhancing reputation for process quality
11. Testing can prevent mission failure