In the current era of continuous service delivery and operations, teams need to work in collaboration to achieve their goals. With this rising need for software testing in the development process, teams can benefit from defect management systems and software testing tools. Software developers and testers can use different tools to track errors or defects, and sometimes these tools clash with working together. Thus, all departments should be working with the same tool or at least find a cross-functional tool that brings all teams on one platform.
The issue tracking tool is the talk of the town for all software testing companies that commit delivering quality products in less time. However, investing in the right tools is as important as deciding to implement tools in software testing processes. Most organizations fail to choose an issue tracking tool that is integrated with other systems. Even though all tools are working effectively, but the lack of integration holds the knowledge in silos and makes coordination between operations staff and developers difficult.
Avoid a Single Tool Department-wise
It doesn’t matter which issue tracking tool you have chosen to use; it is important to ensure that the knowledge about those issues is not stored in separate silos, and the tools are configured to leverage communication and collaboration between different teams. Precisely, breaking down silos requires effective communication. And tools can simply store the information, but not communicate them. This calls for some kind of process to identify and exchange the information to the operations to developers and vice versa.
Communication is the Key
Once the information is fed and stored into the defect tracking tools, it is easier for teams to identify which information is relevant to various departments. But this does not mean that the relative information will be communicated throughout the teams. Further, when trying to break silos feedback plays an important role. It simply means that there should be more meetings between developers and operations staff. It helps to ensure that all team members are dedicated to this activity and work on the key areas for improvement. It is also important for teams to share their goals if there are any changes in the approved decisions by the management.
Choosing Tools that are suitable for both Developers and Operations
So, another key to successful communication between teams is by picking tools that meet the requirements of the operations staff and developers. It should be friendly and accessible to both the teams and have features that are designed for the IT operations team and suitable for ensuring software quality.
Conclusion
We have discussed the impacts of using separate issue tracking tools for different departments. It depicts how difficult it makes the software delivery process difficult for all the teams involved. To bring all teams at one platform the use of various tools should be avoided. Even if multiple tools are used, they should be integrated.
