How can collaboration between developers and testers improve testing?

Testers and developers have diverged into two separate roles as the industry has evolved. Although this may be true to a certain extent, their cross-collaboration can significantly help in delivering requirement-compliant software to the end-user.

In this guide, let’s discuss the details of the developer-tester collaboration in depth, beginning with understanding each role.

Understanding the roles

Both developers and testers are equally important to the successful outcome of a software project. Before discussing how they can collaborate effectively, let’s identify their roles in the development process.

The role of developers

The role of a developer aims to build the software under consideration while adhering to the requirements defined in the Business Requirement Specification (BRS). But, again, this significantly changes based on the company where you are employed.

For instance, if you’re working in a company where you’re the sole developer, you might be responsible for not just building the software but also designing its underlying architecture. And, if you’re employed by a company with a large development team, you might already get a defined architecture you must code out and build.

The role of testers

The role of a tester starts parallel to that of a developer. While a developer builds the software, the tester starts working on test suites, test cases, and test inputs and has an elaborate test plan ready to be executed once the developers push their features onto the quality assurance (QA) stage.

At this point, testers will implement their test plan and ensure that the software was built correctly with all functional and non-functional requirements considered.

Testers ensure the quality and reliability of the software by identifying and reporting bugs and performing thorough testing, including unit, integration, and user acceptance tests. While developers do initial testing, testers handle the heavy tasks of comprehensive testing to validate that the software meets standards and functions as intended.

Fun fact: A developer will also play the role of a tester, performing initial testing of their feature to ensure that everything is working before raising a pull request.

The Collaboration of Developers and Testers

Now, it’s pretty clear what their roles look like as independent entities. But how does it work when a developer and a software tester collaborate on the software?

Better Requirement Clarification

Sometimes, a tester might miss a functional requirement or incorrectly test a requirement, or vice versa. In such cases, the developer responsible for the feature can immediately contact the tester and convey the implementation they have done. Doing so avoids the long process of raising a QA Ticket, which is then picked up by the same developer, thus significantly improving productivity.

Early Bug Detection

Sometimes, testers can also work alongside developers during development. By doing so, testers get an active insight into what’s going on in the product and, thus, are able to identify potential issues proactively and fix them on the spot.

Creating Shared Responsibility

Both the developer and tester can take part in triage meetings to prioritize and assign bugs. This helps define priority levels for bugs and fixes the critical ones first.

Additionally, testers can engage in peer reviews with the developer to help walk through the code. This helps identify potential logical flaws and amend them immediately while also helping to maintain the overall code quality.

Better Test Coverage

Both the developer and tester can write test cases to help improve the overall test coverage of the system under consideration. For example, developers can work on writing unit tests with practices like (Behavioral) Test-Driven Development, while testers can focus on working on the end-to-end and integration testing to ensure the software functions as expected.

This also significantly improves the software’s overall testability in the long run, as changes can be introduced without worrying about breaking the software.

Fewer Bottlenecks

Generally, testing is left to the last stage of the software development lifecycle. This can create a massive bottleneck with software delivery as hundreds of features need to be tested in a limited time frame before delivery.

But, when developers and testers effectively collaborate, they can reduce the overall testing bottleneck as it creates a more “shift-left” to testing where most of the testing is done during the development phase, thus easing out the end test process, significantly improving the overall software delivery time.

Improved Communication

Engaging together also significantly improves communication between the two teams. Both developers and testers can participate in standup meetings to ensure that they are on the same page in terms of what everyone is working on, the overall process, tools utilized, issues, and upcoming tasks.

By doing so, they are able to effectively prioritize what will happen first, thus creating a streamlined communication, testing, and delivery process.

Strategies for Effective Collaboration

Well, you might wonder, how you can adopt effective collaboration between your testers and developers?

Here are four ways to do so:

1. Regular meetings and Stand-ups

Regular meetings, such as daily stand-ups, keep everyone aligned. These provide opportunities for both developers and testers to discuss progress, identify roadblocks, avoid conflicts, and plan the next steps. They can share insights and update each other on their work.

2. Use of Collaboration Tools

The team can use tools like JIRA, Slack, or Trello to enhance communication and project management. These tools help track progress and allow both developers and testers to monitor tasks, enabling immediate action when needed.

3. Cross-Team Training and Knowledge Sharing

Cross-training is beneficial for understanding each other’s roles and helping team members identify the impact of others’ work on the overall project. Additionally, this helps them to appreciate each other’s work, facilitates better collaboration, and can improve overall project efficiency.

4. Joint Planning and Goal Setting

Having joint plans and goals ensures that developers and testers work toward the same objectives. This joint effort helps align priorities and understand the impact of each others’ work on the overall project.