What is Testing?
Quality assurance and software testing is an integral part of the software development process. It’s the stage where the company realizes how viable its software is.
For this reason, firms must prioritize the software development process. Hence, the need for software development and testing outsourcing services to third parties.
Benefits of Outsourcing
When firms outsource the testing of their software, there are various benefits they stand to gain. Some of them include:
- Shorter time-to-market.
- High-quality end-products.
- The objectivity of the testing team — they’re emotionally uninvested in the product.
- Outsourcing software testing is also extremely cost-effective.
- Industry expertise
These amongst many others are the answers to the question of why we need outsourcing.
Things To Note Before Outsourcing Testing
Outsourcing testing is beneficial for your business, but many mistakes can make the entire process go south. Here is a list of things you should pay attention to before outsourcing software testing.
1. Take note of industry experience
When choosing the vendor to outsource your quality assurance and software testing process, you should look out for their industry experience.
Choosing a team that has significance in your specific industry will make the testing process smoother. Since the external testing team has experience in your industry, they know which areas have the highest level of business impact and can consequently place more testing priority on those areas.
2. Technological frameworks and best practices
When a team has done something successfully for a long period, they begin to formulate a framework — best practices, specific tool kits, and patterns that they trust and have worked with over the years.
These things speed up the testing process, shortening the time-to-market of your software. This is why it is important to ensure that whatever vendor you are choosing has all these things in place. They are usually signals of experience and expertise.
3. Finance and payments
Before choosing from the long list of offers, you should agree on a payment method. The most common payment method is the rate per test day or the hourly rate, but you can always bargain for some change if it doesn’t suit you..
4. Do not overlook those references
When the vendors are trying to woo you into outsourcing testing to them, they may provide you with references/testimonials of their success. But, think about it for a minute. Which vendor would bring references that would be detrimental to its own “success”? None!
So, ensure to do a little background check yourself. Look out for what your competitors are using, find out which vendors have the largest market share and are gaining headways in the industry, et cetera. This way you get a clearer picture of who you’re working with.
5. Start small
An important thing to note during the software development and testing outsourcing process is not to completely trust a new vendor.
Start small with them, deepen your bond, test the waters, and first give them your smaller projects. From there, you can slowly build enough trust to safely dive in with the bigger projects.
6. Compatibility
Do they share similar work ethics and ideas with your company? Can they work at your pace comfortably? Can you both effectively communicate information to each other? Do they understand your ideas? In essence, are they a good cultural fit for your company?
These are the sort of questions you should ask yourself before choosing a QA vendor. If they cannot handle the way you work or understand your ideas, then they are most likely not a good choice for you.
7. Ensure your potential vendor/testing partner understands the agile software development process
This is even more important if the project you are hoping to outsource is a particularly large one. While they might still end up delivering without agile development, they would be much slower than is necessary. And sometimes, speed is everything.
In conclusion, you stand to gain a lot from outsourcing testing services to external third parties — only if that’s done right. With over 25 years of experience in quality assurance and software testing, Tezza business solutions ltd is excellently placed to provide the best business solutions. Contact us today for our unique range of services.