Dealing with Unexpected Delays in Your Release Cycle

A survey of more than 500 IT and development professionals found 66% have slowed down the frequency of software delivery since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. (link)

Now that’s a delay none of us could have expected. 

Economic issues, colleagues out of office due to illness and general disorder has disrupted teams across the world from delivering products on their regular schedule. 

On a smaller scale, every day, engineering teams face minor hiccups and delays that can set back release cycles. An unexpected bug, or a team member on holiday, or a bad brush with an external vendor can all create issues….

And keep engineering leaders awake at night. 

On top of that, slowing down the frequency of software delivery comes with a whole host of issues. In the ever-competitive tech landscape, slowing down your releases means letting the competition race ahead of you. The second you take your eye off the ball, another competitor is going to swoop in and take it from you.

And no one wants to get left behind.

But there are ways to deal with unexpected delays in your software delivery cycle. 

We’re here to tell you how. 

Why your team might face delays

Imagine you are rushing to meet a 5pm code freeze on a Friday (maybe you don’t have to imagine this!). The development team is working all guns blazing to get code submitted on time. But one of your devs is out sick, meaning the rest of the team are picking up the slack. 

The team rushes to meet the deadline, potentially cutting a few corners on the way. 

What comes next?

Your internal QA team gets to work, discovering more bugs than they might usually if your team wasn’t low on resources. Now, there is extra bug fixing to be done, and your QA team is working extra hard to uncover those potential issues that might impact your customers down the line. 

This kind of scenario is a familiar scene:

Lack of resources due to budget restrictions, illness or holidays, or even just a team that is stretched to its very limits will inevitably cause delays.

A well-oiled machine won’t seem so well oiled when there’s a spanner in the works. 

What can we do to fix this?

What teams in tight spots need are solutions that works with them, not against them. 

If your team is overwhelmed by testing requirements and under constant pressure, they need something that will boost their current QA capabilities, enabling them to test more frequently and get fast results.

This is where crowdtesting comes into play.

Crowdtesting utilises the power of a crowd of testers across the world to test your app in the way you see fit. It’s similar to hiring a whole new team of 20-30 professional testers, but without the headache and cost of recruitment. 

Crowdtesting providers are your access point to the crowd, enabling you to have access to their dedicated testing teams who find bugs for breakfast, lunch and dinner. By partnering with a crowdtesting provider, you partner with the strength of their crowd. 

This scales up your testing capacity, as your team can work hard to meet the dreaded 5 pm code freeze on a Friday, send off your tests on Friday afternoon and have test results back on Monday morning. Crowdtesters work on different schedules in different timezones across the world, so you never have to worry about no one being available to test your software. 

What’s more, you can send off test scripts to the crowd at any point in your SDLC, meaning your team never has to wait for free time to get QA done right. 

Imagine having a global team of testers at the touch of button… that’s what crowdtesting means.

But not all crowdtesting providers are the same. 

With Global App Testing, having access to the crowd is just the start.

The Global App Testing Way 

We know how important it is for your external vendors to work with your engineering team, making their lives easier so they have more time to deliver quality products, time and time again.

For busy teams with packed schedules, tools that can scale up your team’s capacity and help you out of a tight spot are invaluable. 

That’s why Global App Testing acts as your peace of mind and your failsafe partner to assist your team when they need it the most.

Global App Testing augments your current QA so teams can ship products faster. We provide a testing platform with 24/7/365 access so that you can test at speed at any time of day. We call it ‘elastic QA’ because it’s flexible to your needs. You can scale your QA quickly, when you need it, without being constrained by hiring budgets, time constrictions or lack of testing resources. 

Our dedicated Customer Success team is also always on hand to help you utilize our testing platform to the best of its ability. We work with your engineering team to make sure they can rest easy, knowing their tests are in safe hands. Your test results are moderated to the highest standard, so you don’t ever have to sift through messy bug reports or repeat bugs. That means you can get the job done as quickly as possible. 

After all, the faster bugs are found and logged, the faster your team can set about fixing them. And a great quality app is a bug-free one. 

What’’s more, your data will be safe with Global App Testing. Most crowd testing providers claim to protect the security and privacy of your data but can you rest assured? Unless you've been audited externally there's no way to tell. 

At Global App Testing, we are ISO 27001 certified, meaning we meet the highest possible standards of security management systems. Out of the 10 most popular software providers listed on Software Testing News, only 2 are ISO 27001 certified. Global App Testing is one of them.

That means your data is safe with our team. 

Don’t let unexpected delays get in your way

Some delays, unfortunately, are inevitable. 

The way of the world means unexpected issues will set your engineering team back, and even risk a product being shipped way after the deadline.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t reduce the risk of this happening. Or have a solid plan in place to mitigate them when they do. 

GAT scales and augments your QA and engineering teams, to ensure . 

By enabling you to have access to QA capabilities when you need it the most, Global App Testing helps your team deal with any potential bumps in the road, smoothing them out to make the ride of software delivery a whole lot easier.

Speak to one of our growth experts today to find how Global App Testing can help your team ship products faster.