Once a feasible testing mission is established, Yoter Up defines clear objectives to achieve it. Although objectives differ by project, typical goals include:

• Detecting critical defects: These defects severely impact customer or user satisfaction. Identifying them early helps teams fix issues before release.
• Identifying non-critical defects: While not always fixed, uncovering minor defects improves post-release support by providing documented workarounds to customer service teams.
• Managing quality risks: Testing at Yoter Up reduces the likelihood of hidden defects through risk-based test selection and prioritization, addressing the most critical risks first for maximum impact.
• Building confidence: Senior management and stakeholders receive reliable insights into software readiness and quality assurance, minimizing unwelcome surprises.
• Generating actionable information: Testing supports cross-team collaboration, efficient procedures, and quality gates by providing valuable data for continuous improvement in test case design, defect resolution, and code quality.

Moreover, Yoter Up integrates the testing mission and objectives within the organization's broader quality policies, ensuring consistency across all quality management efforts.

Before setting any metrics, Yoter Up underscores the necessity of understanding their purpose and application. Metrics serve as measurement tools to evaluate whether testing objectives are met. Misaligned metrics can mislead teams and harm both business outcomes and morale. Clear goals, objectives, and success criteria are fundamental; without them, uncertainty often leads to project failure or demotivation.

Monitoring current progress helps Yoter Up determine how far the project has advanced and what remains to be achieved. Test managers at Yoter Up tailor metrics to fit unique project requirements, documenting them in the test plan and integrating them into the definition of “done.” The metrics chosen measure testing efficiency, effectiveness, and stakeholder satisfaction, offering actionable insights into project status and aiding informed decision-making.

Importantly, metrics are indicators—not goals themselves. The design and monitoring of these metrics consider project-specific conditions, team dynamics, organizational behavior, and dependencies with other groups (e.g., requirements, development). This approach ensures metrics remain practical and free from unintended consequences.

For example, an objective might be “finding defects,” not “ensuring software quality,” as testing alone cannot guarantee quality. Effectiveness metrics include defect detection rate (DDR) and the percentage of critical defects found. Efficiency can be assessed by the rate of rejected defects. Customer and internal satisfaction surveys further complement these quantitative measures.

Yoter Up classifies testing metrics into three categories:

• Project metrics: Track test progress, performance, productivity, scheduling, and scope adherence.
• Product metrics: Assess product testing coverage, defect density, and feature maturity.
• Process metrics: Measure test process capability, efficiency, effectiveness, and stakeholder satisfaction.

Metrics enable consistent reporting and help test managers communicate project health to all stakeholders—from technical teams to executives.

When defining and reporting metrics, Yoter Up follows these guidelines:

• Limit metrics to the most relevant and useful, ensuring balanced perspectives.
• Automate metric tracking and reporting where possible to improve accuracy and reduce manual workload.
• Present data clearly using charts or tables tailored to the audience, ensuring transparency.
• Validate metric accuracy before sharing to prevent misinterpretation.

The lifecycle stages of test metrics include:

1. Analyze: Identify and define necessary quality metrics.
2. Communicate: Inform teams and stakeholders about metric goals and data collection methods.
3. Evaluate: Collect, verify, and calculate metrics from gathered data.
4. Report: Deliver concise, audience-specific reports and incorporate feedback for continual improvement.

Yoter Up recommends starting with simple, relevant, and interpretable metrics that do not bias any stakeholder group. Five key steps include:

1. Clarify metric goals to avoid false alarms or unwarranted progress.
2. Begin with small, straightforward metrics, expanding only as needed.
3. Favor automated, easy-to-collect metrics supported by test management tools.
4. Ensure transparent presentation of metrics with accessible visual aids.
5. Regularly review metrics for continued relevance and utility.

The Goal Question Metric (GQM) approach is leveraged to quantitatively assess goal achievement through targeted questions, often reported at regular intervals.

At Yoter Up, measuring the test process itself is vital but challenging. Key definitions and measurements include:

• Efficiency: The resource economy in achieving objectives, sometimes expressed as a percentage that can exceed 100% in certain analyses.
• Effectiveness: The degree of objective fulfillment, with 100% indicating full achievement.
• Satisfaction: Subjective stakeholder evaluations, typically gathered via Likert-scale surveys.

When objective metrics indicate success but satisfaction is low, Yoter Up investigates and addresses underlying issues to ensure continuous improvement.