Your software testing process should always be iterative and ever-evolving. Because there is no perfect, airtight software testing process, there is always room for improvement and increased efficiency.
You can get close to perfect in your testing strategy, and one of the most critical ways of doing so is by utilizing software testing metrics that tell you the honest truth about how your software is performing during development.
Software testing metrics play a major role in how you and your team analyze the progress, productivity, and the quality of your software testing process. That is why selecting the right metrics to measure and analyze your tests is critical.
In this blog, we will provide an overview of what software testing metrics are, the importance of them, and some essential software testing metrics you should be using.
What Are Software Testing Metrics?
Software testing metrics are units of measurement designed to assess the software testing process. Also known as key performance indicators (KPIs), they provide helpful insight into productivity, progress, quality, and areas requiring improvement in the software testing process.
Software testing metrics provide vital information about your testing process and serve as a guide to process iteration and improvement. Through comparative measurement between one test and another, you can analyze historical data or pre-defined benchmarks that help calibrate your tests for improvement.
Always keep in mind that a data-driven approach to testing helps you make informed decisions!
The Importance of Software Testing Metrics
Without software testing metrics baked into your software testing process, you are essentially flying your plane blind. There is no way to know if your tests are effective or not. Not only are the benefits of software testing metrics numerous, but they should also be foundational to your team. Below are a few of those benefits:
Minimizing Costs
Defects in your software are one of the biggest ways your development process can get bogged down and waste valuable time. Software testing metrics provide a way to find and fix defects early, which saves time down the road and, ultimately, saves you money.
Definition & Measurement
Think of software testing metrics as your guardrails; they allow you to set objectives and measure the results to determine if you have met those objectives. Your chosen metrics help you monitor the performance of your software and track progress.
Improved Planning
Your project planning will go a lot more smoothly with software testing metrics incorporated into your overall strategy. They guide you in resource allocation, creating testing strategies for different testing phases, and overall timeframes.
Risk Assessment
Risk in the software testing process is one of the chief concerns of organizations. Vulnerabilities or defects in your software can be catastrophic. Software testing metrics will help you analyze KPIs like failure rates and defect leakage.
Test Automation
Software testing metrics can go a long way in helping your team achieve a state of test automation. Automated testing is inherently faster and more efficient than manual testing, and your metrics will help optimize your automated tests so they can be as effective as possible.
Types of Software Testing Metrics
When we talk about software testing metrics, there are three different metrics categories to place a variety of KPIs in. These are:
Project Metrics
Project metrics are KPIs that analyze a project’s efficiency and efficacy. These KPIs include project expenses, project duration, and resource allocation — all vital ways to assess each of your team’s projects. They are especially helpful for project managers to ensure projects are on track or where to improve the project if they are not.
Product Metrics
Product metrics are software testing metrics that assess the product under development. When assessing your product, you should be looking at its functionality, effectiveness at achieving what it's designed for, and overall UX. These types of KPIs will help assess if the product you are releasing will be accepted or rejected by the consumer by evaluating the product’s positives and negatives, as well as any enhancements that may be required.
Process Metrics
Process metrics provide guideposts throughout the software development and testing process that help identify what is working well and what needs to be improved. These kinds of KPIs evaluate the amount of resources being used, time consumption of each testing stage, and how quickly (or slowly) your software testing process runs from beginning to end.
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5 Essential Software Testing Metrics You Should Be Using
Now we can get down to specific software testing metrics that will be immensely helpful when iterating your testing process and searching for ways to enhance efficiency. Below are five key software testing metrics to incorporate into your strategy.
Defect Leakage
Defects in the software development process are a frustration that all testers and developers must deal with. But allowing defects to leak further along into production will create major delays and issues. Analyzing defect leakage will help you determine when your software is truly ready for release or if it requires more testing.
Review Efficiency
Every component of your software should be put into a review process to ensure it is functioning properly. But is your review process efficient? Assessing your review efficiency will help lower the number of defects that get passed along in production, which will save time and effort in later stages.
Test Effectiveness
The primary goal of software testing is to locate and eliminate defects in your product. Understanding your test effectiveness will allow you to improve the quality of your tests and, by extension, the quality of your product. When assessing this KPI, you should be looking for the number of issues found by testers compared to the total number of issues in your software.
Test Coverage
Test coverage is the KPI that indicates whether or not you are covering all your bases. The more types of devices and operating systems you test your software with, the better your test coverage is. This assesses how your software functions under a wide range of conditions (network, Android vs Apple, etc.).
Test Efficiency
Once you have established adequate test effectiveness as mentioned above, determining test efficiency will help assess where you can improve the pace and progress of your testing strategy. You can do so by looking at the number of passed or failed test cases, the percentage of fixed defects, and the average time taken to fix defects.
Bottom Line
In the increasingly fast-paced world of software testing, it can be difficult to know where to start when trying to improve your testing process. Software testing metrics serve as a guide that you can lean on for finding ways to make your testing more efficient and effective.
The good news?
As the industry’s most powerful performance testing tool, BlazeMeter offers unrivaled reporting and analytics that help you achieve testing success faster and easier than ever.
The even better news?
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