Testers and developers. Why their cooperation is so important?

When we are talking about software development, each person in the team performs his own job within a particular project. However, the team works like an organic whole and it’s hard to imagine the successful software product if the development team can’t understand each other.

One of the most significant roles play the relationship between testers and developers. These guys may become like twins in cooperation, because their job largely overlaps. The most typical traits are the following:

• both written and verbal cooperation;
• the specific slang;
• the cooperative work on quality.

Written and verbal cooperation

When dealing with fast-flowing projects, where the deadlines may be extremely costly, the clear explanation of certain software code parts or recent bugs is the best way to success. The same situation is with the discussion of problems during within a project. Testers and developers can make the job easier when they are free to explain the viewpoint and share their own expert opinions, so important conclusions can be made.

The specific slang

Obviously, each team has their own, but when talking about developers and testers, such approach is a part of everyday conversation, so the better you can understand the tester – the quicker you will understand what did he wants and vice versa.

The cooperative work on quality

No matter how experienced you are, if you can’t understand your tester or developer – your experience is worth nothing. So, pay attention to your job ant that it does not contradict with the whole project’s ideas and concepts.

What is a good ratio of developers to testers?

This all depends on the development model your company use. Statistics shows that average ratio of developers to testers in the medium organizations is 4:1.
However, it doesn’t mean that this ratio will work for your business as well. And even if it works for you, on different stages of development cycle you will see that this ratio can be changed dramatically. When you feel that this ratio reached 4:5 (which means that you need more testers than developers) – the best solution is to hire a few ‘on-demand’ testers.

Such cooperation between developers and testers may bring up huge advantages in different aspects of software development process. For example, fast and qualitative completion of assigned tasks, which makes it possible for the team to create truly successful final product, no matter what kind it is.

Do you have in-house joke about the relationship between testers and developers? Make sure to get one in our post Optimistic Developer VS Pessimistic Tester.