How to Build a QA Strategy from Scratch

Most companies don't plan for quality -they react to it. A critical bug reaches production, customers complain, and suddenly everyone's scrambling to "add more testing." This reactive approach leads to inefficient testing and a culture where quality always plays catch-up.

Start With Risk Assessment

Before writing test cases, understand what failure costs your business. Map your product by risk level:

• High risk: Features handling money, sensitive data, or user safety
• Medium risk: Core product functionality that affects user experience
• Low risk: Nice-to-have features with limited user impact

High-risk areas need comprehensive testing. Low-risk features might rely on basic smoke tests and production monitoring.

Choose Testing Types Strategically

The testing pyramid remains effective: many unit tests at the base, fewer integration tests in the middle, selective end-to-end tests at the top.

Unit tests: Fast, cheap, catch regression bugs early. Developers should write these alongside feature code.

Integration tests: Verify components work together. Slower than unit tests but catch interface mismatches.

End-to-end tests: Simulate real user workflows. Expensive to maintain but provide highest confidence. Focus on critical user journeys.

Manual testing: Still valuable for exploratory testing, usability assessment, and edge case investigation.

Build a Test Plan

Your test plan should answer five questions:

• What are we testing?
• Why does it matter (risk level)?
• How will we test it (manual, automated, type)?
• When will we test it (every commit, daily, pre-release)?
• Who is responsible?

Update the plan as your product evolves. When you find production bugs, add tests to prevent regression.

Integrate Into Development

Quality built in costs less than quality checked afterward. Shift testing left:

• Include acceptance criteria in requirements
• Identify testability concerns during design
• Write tests alongside feature development
• Run automated tests in CI/CD pipeline

Tests that only run manually before releases won't catch issues early enough.

Measure and Iterate

Track quality metrics:

• Defect escape rate: Bugs found in production vs. total bugs
• Test coverage: Percentage of code with automated tests
• Mean time to detection: How quickly you find bugs

Review quarterly: What bugs are you missing? Where is testing taking too long? What tools could improve efficiency?

Start Simple

Don't implement a comprehensive QA strategy on day one. Start with smoke tests for critical paths. Add unit tests for complex logic. Gradually build regression coverage. Each layer adds value.

Building quality into your product is a marathon. Explore how BetterQA helps companies establish effective testing practices.