Factors to Consider when Investing in Quality Product Development

The production of quality outputs requires a good amount of investment. It is important to understand and decide upon the right amount to be invested as too much of the same may cause a problem with the correct utility of overall resources, while minimal spending may not turn out to be satisfactory and make the product a major failure. To prevent situations like these, we need to categorize the quality of a product as below:

• Sufficient Quality
• Insufficient Quality
• Exceptional Quality

At most times, people get atleast one project in each of the above category. The cost incurred on maintaining optimum quality levels with regards to these projects should be accounted in entirety. It is important to take a careful look into each of them as some costs are easy to evaluate while the others are more difficult to identify. Under the circumstances, the various aspects that should be taken care of are:

Testing the Product

It is important to know about the kind of testing methods required and the outcomes of the same. In the case of software related projects, there are different kinds of tests that are recommended:

• Unit Testing is conducted on the individual components written by the programmer. That way, a good base is created from these components to build high quality products
• Software Integration Test is conducted to ensure that components are in sync with each other. It also checks whether the interface is working as it was designed
• Systems Testing verifies whether the software is working in a way that it was supposed to perform or not
• System Integration Testing ensures that the software product can coexist with other products, devices and databases in the system
• Acceptance Testing makes sure that the user can actually use the product and perform desired tasks with the software

If the project that you are working on is not related to software development, similar kind of tests can be conducted to identify the problems in the product. Investing in the right kind of tests is necessary, regardless of the nature of the product.

Reviewing and Analyzing the Product

It is important to know and analyze the investments made on the testing of each product. The factors that require consideration at this stage are the time and effort needed for the testing, mapping down of a definite strategy/plan, and planning of requisite tests. Testing of a product is not always the right way of understanding its behavior. Sometimes, a visual and automated analysis of a product is required to identify and remove the problems in a much more effective manner.

It is always important to know whether the tests and reviews being conducted are working in a proper way or not. If the tests are successful in identifying the problems, they can be applied for screening future products. If there’s an assurance that the time spent for conducting these tests is fruitful, then more investments can be made to include other defect-detection activities as well. A lot of time can be saved in planning and conducting random tests.

Conclusion

Organizations have found that if a problem is detected at an earlier stage, it is easier and cheaper to fix the same; rather than doing it later. If you find these concerns influencing your project as well, you are better off shifting your quality investment to activities that help you deal and handle defects when they are less expensive to fix. Therefore, before investing in a product that is equipped to offer good quality to users, it is important to keep these tips and guidelines in place — you will not be disappointed!
 

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