Quality Assurance Outsourcing

Utilitarian and Cost Effective Advantages of Quality Assurance Outsourcing

Introduction

Custom software development is not cheap, while testing it will not drain your financial resources. High standard in software quality and keeping within a budget frames must be commutual. One of the ways to enhance the product value while retaining low cost can be attained via outsourcing of special tasks like Quality Assurance and Testing. Software Quality Assurance is an integral part of commercial success of the product and customers’ content through risk minimization. Irrespective of the size of QA staff of the company, one can name some strong arguments for the benefit of outsourcing of the software testing process.

Time

As is well known time is money – so wasting your time you waste your money. Outsourcing enables your company to concentrate effort on core activity. Time is getting more and more valuable as delivery date approaches. Software testing is the terminal stage of software development life cycle, and in some cases lasts to the last minute.

If working in tight time frames, it is customary to pay the bulk of attention and effort to problematic areas of application. The peril of such situation is a possible lack of attention to other parts of the program. Here is the dilemma: how to effectively distribute your staff to cover all activities. An option can be the delegation of lengthy and time consuming tasks, like compatibility testing, to external professionals. A dedicated QA lab can easily handle this with the least forfeit possible. Alongside with Compatibility testing goes bug regression. And this aspect of QA is particularly tiresome if an application contains plenty of minor bugs. Continuous revisiting of these issues will interrupt the pace of work and restrict the time that could be spent for finding and fixing new bugs.

Resources

The QA process is iterative and SME quite often don’t need or have no budget to maintain testing team full time. Outsourcing sustains low costs via elimination of fixed overhead so there is no need to hold yare the full-time staff for peak times.

Qualified testers are hard to find and, and very expensive to retain. As you pack the team, this does not yet guarantees that everyone will get along. You may have communication problems, personality discords, etc. will create obstacles to dynamic work of newly established group. Outsourcing removes these obstacles – its team work is an already streamlined process.

Its crucial to have access to highly skilled people with up to date knowledge. If your expertise is insufficient to perform in-house development consult a QA Lab. Its not necessary to add a new member to your testing team, you should rather turn to first-rate outsourcer who will provide a seasoned tester who will provide staff training while testing your application. As a result you get an experienced external team member who will test and train your full time employees. The same situation is with facilities and tools. When opting for outsourcing small or midsize companies don’t have to add add costly hardware and tools which will definitely be obsolete the next time you will need to perform a testing cycle. You don’t have to worry about the infrastructure and ever-increasing prices for Commercial Real Estate – this factor can be added to the list of outsourcing benefits.

Objectivity

Objectivity is the priceless component of your software product not entered to balance sheet.

It is desired that an independent testing lab to verify the software too be released, because independent verification makes sound business sense. Internal QA staff knows the application in-and-out but such actual knowledge has its disadvantages. Deep knowledge can breed complacency, and it is proved on practice that best professionals may omit what others will discover promptly. A fresh view will add confidence.

Also objectivity can be attained through engaging external consultants assist in formulation of test plans and staff training. It does not matter if you only start off or already on-the-go you can get consulting from many testing labs. Test labs can give a piece of advice on selecting personnel, setting up infrastructure, etc.

Choosing

When the die is cast, and the outsourcing opportunity is near at hand, it is crucial to find a capable Test Lab. It won’t be an easy task to find strong performers among businesses claiming to be the best in the industry. Hold a thorough research of the following aspects:

• Testimonials
• Documentation
• References
• Infrastructure

References:

Any reputed company will provide you with the list of ex- and ongoing customers. Communicating with referees will enable to track outsourcer’s history as well as give the idea about some services rendered. Also, find out about the client/return rate since return business says much more more about the nature of the relationship.

Documentation:

Pay real attention to outsourcer’s documentation: it should be clear, concise, and orderly. It is the best option to have the bug reports similar to the type your company is developing.

Facilities:

If you plan to strong partnership and long beneficial relations, do spare some time and pay a visit to a prospective test lab. It is the wisdom of centuries to observe the prospect partner in his own environment, and at the same time time make sure that this “environment” exists. In the course of visit or virtually try to find out as more as possible about infrastructure, security, testing tools, hardware and the number and types of PC’s at hand.

Conclusion

It is crucial for a company to maintain its competitive advantage in ever-increasing and getting more and more complex high tech environments. Robust, high-performance software is essential to business success. In the up to date market environment, where any least mistake can be a disaster, partnership with a testing lab makes sound business sense. Funds intended for QA and testing should not be considered as expenses but as a strategic investment.