How Writing Test Cases Can Save Your Company Time

To those unaware of what test cases are, there is often a tendency to confuse test cases with unit tests. While unit tests apply to specific code segments and modules in order to test whether such code performs the intended tasks, test cases are usually applied to the application as a whole.

While unit tests are more of a developer/development team process, test cases are usually a part of the Quality Assurance spectrum of the software development life cycle. As unit tests often overlap into the QA spectrum, test case methods also occasionally overlap into the aspect of development itself because results from test cases directly impact on improvements which will be made to the application that has been developed before offering the said application as a finished product to the end-user or client.

Management benefits from test cases through various means, as in other areas where enforcing proper code documentation techniques into the software development policies of the enterprise is recommended, management is largely responsible for ensuring that writing test cases and executing them to determine application characteristics and responses under various scenarios forms an essential part of the Quality Assurance and software development/ coding processes that go into the creation of a functional application. Project management will usually oversee the said implementation and ensure that it is adhered to. Using test cases can then save time and allow the project manager specify a timeframe which it is possible to deliver the entire functional application and then deliver on or before the said date.

When it comes to developers, test cases tend to assist them in saving time because Quality Assurance testers have a methodology to their approach. They have a detailed process of going through the cases as well as a concise reporting structure. If any problems arise they can easily isolate the problem, report it in detail and allow the developers perform the needed tasks in order to resolve the said problem or problems.

The alternative scenario involves the absence of such test cases from the process and the product might pass through other QA tests and end up with the client who may not use the application with the intent of testing various parameters ( as the QA testers would). If an error occurs during the usage of the product, the client has no technical means to effectively report the situation and even when an error- reporting mechanism is included in the software, the client might opt not to use the function and when used, the details from the said error might not be clear enough to assist the developers to resolve the problem.

The QA testers and personnel save time using test cases because when such cases are not used and applications tested to see if they satisfy certain functions and conditions , the application is passed over to the end-user and if the end-user is not an acceptance tester but just a client purchasing the application for use, a problem with the software would mean bad reporting or no reporting at all and a situation where the product has to undergo reevaluation, this reevaluation process would still end up with the QA testers undergoing more or less the same procedures and wasting time to resolve issues that might have been eliminated with test cases.

In terms of client time, using test cases is a prospect the client is not involved in but which when used by the developer saves the client time. The time saved is literally related to what the client does not have to do or what the client does not have to experience. Use of test cases eliminates the frustration of having to send a developed product back to its makers for reevaluation and resolution of existing problems, in the case where the product is a custom application or developed for a very large firm or limited user group (e.g. major banks, accounting firms), it also eliminates the time wasted for smaller companies/individuals seeking out newer alternatives due to the failure of the purchased application to satisfy the intended requirements.