Web Application Development - Bridging the Gap between QA and Development

While in the past QA may have been less of a focus due to time and money, today’s Web applications are strategic components of corporate success and simply cannot fall short.
Successful organizations rely on Web applications as effective points of contact with customers, partners, and employees, and as a means to help reduce costs internally. Web applications are at work, for example, when a customer fills out a response form on a Web site or when a salesperson files a purchase order via a wireless Internet device. It is no longer an option of whether or not to perform a battery of tests on this Web application before they go live; testing and analysis are critical where Web applications are concerned.
Today’s Web administrator understands that these applications cannot shut down or post incorrect data for any user—that the assurance of quality is a must. Today’s QA professional also understands the Web administrator’s challenge, and would be better positioned to help if functional and load testing methods were implemented earlier in the development cycle. When will this collaboration truly take shape so QA is more closely united with development teams in the planning stages of a Web development project? What are the best ways to go about testing to assure organizations that today’s business-critical Web applications won’t fall down on the job? How can small- to mid-size companies prepare their Web applications to compete with the applications of larger organizations?