Software Quality Assurance Testing is an integral and critical phase of any software development project. Developers and testers must ensure that newly developed products or product enhancements meet functional and performance requirements and that those products are reliable and able to operate consistently under peak loads. The risks of releasing a product that is not yet ready are greater now than ever before because of the change in expectations and demands of the end users.

According to the Standish group's research report on Project Failure and Success nearly three out of four software projects are either delivered late, over budget or are cancelled before being completed. This is true despite the involvement of experienced managers, developers and testers in the project. This is a problem that continues till date. The anxiety induced by the question "Are we ready to release?" affects every member of the team. Management dreads having to ask it for fear of hearing an unqualified "No" or even worse.

While releases are more frequent and cycles shorter, the cost of failure has increased dramatically. Just a few years ago, when client server products were at the cutting edge, releases were, perhaps, annual and the expected number of users was known well in advance, because all the users were employees. An organization could mitigate a system failure with a manual backup; for example, orders could be taken by hand while the system was down. But as huge portions of the business were overhauled, and these systems addressed larger user populations, releases became more frequent, and system failures commonly meant that no orders could be taken at all. Today with E-commerce applications, releases can occur two or three times per month. Now, the user base is a large but unknown number of customers, not employees. System failures are highly visible and can cause customers to run to the competition. A continuous approach to quality, initiated early in the software lifecycle, can lower the cost of completing and maintaining the software significantly. This greatly reduces the risk associated with deploying poor quality software.