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ISTQB Foundation Level 4.0 Course Notes

Why is Testing Necessary?

The role of testing is about providing “rigorous testing” to:

  • Build confidence
  • Reduce risk
  • Improve software quality

Reduce the risk of operational problems.

Rigorous testing = quality = confidence that the product works as intended.

Rigorous testing:

  • Meets contractual requirements
  • Meets legal requirements

A user who doesn’t have confidence in the way an app works affects the profitability of the business.

You should not be finding issues in UAT or production if you’ve shifted testing left sufficiently. UAT issues should be the exception, not the rule.

A metric of a great testing team is the small number of issues found in UAT and production because that shows testing has shifted left.

Testing is about talking to whoever you need to in order to assess the impact of an issue, e.g., preventing data from being leaked (security testing).

The role is to understand all the applicable rules that could result in a “failure.”

Testing is important for the following reasons:

EXAM
Know this list

  1. Defect detection
    Identifying issues during dynamic testing.

  2. Customer satisfaction
    Ensures that the organization delivers a quality product. If the product “doesn’t feel good,” activation will be sub-optimal.
    Once trust is lost, it’s hard to get it back.
    Customer satisfaction comes from using a quality and useful product.

  3. Monetary penalties
    Testing can help prevent monetary losses by meeting standards and regulations.

  4. Ensuring quality
    A high-quality product instills confidence.

  5. Reduced maintenance costs
    Quality products with fewer defects mean less effort spent on fixes and maintenance, where the “work” is not making the product better.
    Proper testing detects and resolves issues early, where it’s cheaper to address them.

  6. Performance and reliability
    Ensures the application “performs effectively” and does not result in failures.
    ”Performs effectively” is quality set by the user, so QA is also the “voice of the customer” from a quality point of view.
    Docker is important—maybe so QA can run apps locally the same way they’re run in production.