we are using a classical V-shaped development process. We then have requirements, architecture, design, implementation, integration tests, system tests and acceptance.
Testers are preparing test cases during the first phases of the project. The issue is that, due to resources issues (*), test phases are too long and are often shortened due to time constraints (you know project managers… ;)). Developers are doing their unit-tests as they should.
So my question is simple: should developers be involved in the tests phases and isn't it too 'dangerous'. I'm afraid it will give the project managers a false feeling of better quality as the work has been done but would the added man.days be of any value? I'm not really confident of developers doing tests (no offense here but we all know it's quite hard to break in a few clicks what you have made in severals days).
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
(*) For obscure reasons, increasing the number of testers is not an option as of today.
(Just upfront, it's not a duplicate of Should programmers help testers in designing tests? which talks about test preparation and not test execution, where we avoid the implication of developers)
Best Answer
Looking at your question very literally ("involved in") My only answer is an absolute unequivocal
YES
Devs should never have the final say on their own code.
But, Devs should be involved in testing the work of other devs. It does two things:
Finally, why wouldn't you use as many eyes as possible? You can rarely afford to go through the hiring and on-boarding process to bring additional QA people on board for crunch time. So, where do you find the extra eyes you need? Or do you try to get through crunch time with the same number of QA you had all along? Even if the devs spend 20% of their time testing and 80% fixing whatever bugs come up, it's still more eyes on the app than you had before. Automated testing only gives you a certain level of assurance and it will never be 100%.
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