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5 things to do with the time you used to spend doing manual mobile QA

Amine Bellakrid
Amine Bellakrid
5 things to do with the time you used to spend doing manual mobile QA
December 11, 2018
7
min read

In past articles, we’ve talked about how manual QA takes a lot of resources, and of course, a moderate amount of frustration. We’ve also walked through specific examples of how waldo.io saves mobile developers time and money they used to spend on mobile QA.

But the million dollar question(s) remains: why save the time? And what are you going to do with all that newfound freedom?

All the things you’ve always said you don’t have time for, of course.

Feeling overwhelmed by the freedom? Here are some ideas to get started for product teams and CEOs, specifically.

1) Develop new features + improve existing elements

The time you used to spend on mobile QA – now automated with Waldo – can be used to speed up your product development process and get ahead in your feature pipeline. That means fulfilling user needs and desires quicker, leading to happier users, greater loyalty, and more opportunity for word of mouth virality.

Plus, the more bugs and kinks you smooth out, the more you can market your product to larger audiences.

In addition to (or instead of – that’s up to you!) ticking boxes and squashing known bugs, this time can be used for creative exploration in your design process. What has your product designer always wanted to try that you’ve never been able to make time for? This is your chance to get creative with iteration and experimentation. Have some fun with it!

Pro tip: Get familiar with the Design Council’s Double Diamond concept for the design process.

2) Get to know your users and their needs

Collecting, sorting through, and prioritizing user feedback takes time. If you’re working with a lean team, these tasks may not get the focus they need and deserve. That’s unfortunate considering your users and their needs should be at the center of product development. They’re the ones paying for your product after all.

If you don’t already have a process for collecting user feedback, start there. If you do and it’s just sitting there, it’s time to start sorting and making a list of requests. From there, you and your team can prioritize and identify what features, bugs, and apps to work on next. Fun, right?!

Pro tip: NomNom Insights is a great product for collecting, organizing, and analyzing user feedback from several sources.

3) Create new processes

If you really want to make your team more efficient, use your newfound time to design and set up processes for all your other tasks that are draining team resources. Although setting these up can take time upfront (which is likely why you haven’t created them yet), they’ll save you tons of time and effort in the long run. And now you have the time to create them!

Examples of processes to create include, user feedback (covered above), user onboarding, HR/employee onboarding (or a handbook), branding guidelines, content process and editorial development, social media systems…the options are endless.

Pro tip: Read these two HBR articles: one on improving your processes before automating them and another on getting team buy-in and making your processes stick.

4) Business development + marketing

If you’re a product manager or CEO/COO of small team, you probably wear a lot of hats, including overseeing your QA and mobile app testing process. Imagine if you could spend that time on developing new business or looking for your next round of funding.

Track the time you once spent on QA and assign it to sales, marketing, or funding initiatives. Your revenue stream will thank you for it!

If your mobile developers were managing the QA process, their time could be spent writing a blog post on a technical subject that would really help your audience! And it’d make your content manager super happy.

Pro tip: Keep a list of marketing dreams and ideas you can tackle as time allows. Try to keep them simple so you can execute, measure, and adjust quickly. Some ideas include creating an ebook or industry guide or running a series of Instagram or Reddit ads.

5) Take a vacation!

Or maybe just grab a beer.

Pro tip: Be present and enjoy every single moment.

In summary

Technology and innovations are designed to save you time and make your life easier. That’s why we developed waldo for mobile app creators. We want to see mobile apps be the best they can possibly be. Our product makes that possible by streamlining your QA process into one tool. Curious to learn more? Check it out and let us know what you think!

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