Steps to consider before outsourcing Software testing

Most of the skilled software development organizations know the value of QA as well as the importance of software testing services. Development companies look for solutions to below questions:

Will the application function as expected?

Will there be bugs which affect the user’s experience?

When will the application go live?

This is the reason why QA along with testing services are very important and go together with the development processes. Project managers within large the companies ensure that QA testing need to serve about 33 percent of any project’s duration. QA services provide a large amount of benefits to businesses aiming to improve the overall quality regarding application development along with management processes and minimize business issues by rigorous testing.

With the rise to the global IT outsourcing, a lot of companies look for outsourcing QA and testing for getting top quality deliverables and also for getting competitive benefits. The benefits of outsourcing consist of cost reductions as well as a better using the capital, labor, and technology. There are several items to consider and be aware of prior to signing an agreement with the outsourcing company.

The Engagement Models - Choosing the engagement model is really an important part of the outsourcing plan. The plan includes various aspects, which includes elements of international business strategy, choosing the geographical location, knowing the landscape as well as choosing the outsourcing plan. Various engagement models are:

Incremental Outsourcing - Companies can minimize their chances of outsourcing through splitting the task to small, much more workable projects which they outsource to the companies. Managers in the client company that is why have well-defined deliverables, the programs that work together a contract with related schedules. The area of the work is set on the project by project basis.

Total Outsourcing - Within this model, a number of programs and projects from the client organizations are usually outsourced to some service provider that also represents the end to end program management along with delivery for the client. Project, module or program which is taken from the client organization from the service provider, deploys an onsite team that actually works together with the client teams and their managers also they coordinates work along with the offshore team which does the majority of the work.

SLAs - The SLAs must outline the minimum amount of service must be offered from the outsourcing company. They must be objective and measurable and don't have any ambiguity. It will help both sides in the long run. A few examples regarding the kind of SLAs which should be regarded are:

Timely delivery - dates needs to be agreed at the beginning regarding all big deliverables by all efforts to make sure they are fulfilled. Make use of change control processes in case these dates have to be moved.

Client Satisfaction - regular surveys needs to be carried out to ensure that the service provided from the outsourcing partner is good enough to customers.

Effectiveness - effectiveness metrics consider reducing costs, increasing profit, and also adapting business transactions

The amount of Work - the amount of work at times is hard to define. For instance, projects which are billed for a time-and-material basis might talk about volume regarding many resources whereas a fixed-price project generally specifies lots of deliverables. This metric is a crucial part of the SLA.

Sensitivity - These metrics estimate how much time is needed for any outsourcing partner to carry out a request.

Availability and System Downtime - when outsourcing, ensuring 100% services availability will cost much more than ensuring 99% or 98%, while not all companies or even all applications require 100% reliability. In the SLA, it must ask service availability to fulfill certain business needs.

Also, it is advisable to make sure that SLAs are tied to the contract, at times to risk/reward basis in order to make sure that there is common desire for fulfilling them.

Mobilization - This stage usually consists of establishing the communication process with the client, shaping the work breakdown structure, standard templates sharing to the client, establishing the test strategy and so on.

Quality Improvement - One of the key goals of the client often is to get an important progress in quality which can be gained by outsourcing. Once the relationship amongst the both the parties develops, there has to be a determination to consistently improve the process and improve the working methodologies. This shouldn't really be limited to just testing only, but should consist of the entire lifecycle when it improves the end product.

Flexibility - Outsourcing agreements of QA and testing need to have an amount of flexibility in order to make sure timescale fluctuations are fulfilled.

Change Management - Clients will usually have constantly changing needs which, when managed improperly, might really impact the time, quality, and the cost. In order to help clients tackle with such scenario, QA and testing outsourcing businesses have a complete change and have configuration management system.

Intellectual Property Protection - IP protection is among the crucial factors for the customers while outsourcing services. Outsourcing providers of QA and testing need to protect every PERSONALLY IDENTIFIABLE INFORMATION (PII) provided by the clients. It must never be duplicated, distributed, disclosed, conveyed or make available of any PII to third parties in any other manner.

People - Lot of outsourcing providers hold exclusive centers of excellence in order to train their interns as well as their staff on different testing methods and tools which are needed for smooth execution on the engagement. Making sure of the best resources for your needs are available is important towards achieving the success of the engagement.

Communication - The outsourcing providers enable communication among the client and the stakeholders. Communication is regarded as a key challenge with outsourcing; hence providers need to manage good channels and POC available to clients.

Security - Many of the leading outsourcing providers have certain Security Policies, mainly to secure data. Such security measures given by outsourcing vendors have measures to limit the entry and exit of equipment, personnel, and media from a specific area.

Software testing is an important stage of software development although not the primary activity of many organizations. Outsourcing this function makes it possible for companies to focus on main activities as well as leading innovation, while the QA and testing providers work effectively, making sure of good quality results as well as an excellent business outcome.

Mindfire Solutions has been providing software testing consulting to its esteemed clients for over 15 years now. We have dedicated teams for enterprise, desktop, web and Mobile Application Testing. If you need any kind of assistance in your software testing process or you need to hire software testers, please feel free to get in touch with us now and our software testing team will revert back with a free quote within one business day. Also as a special offer, you can avail the limited period Risk-Free Trial Offer.