The quality assurance stage is significant in the software development process because of two reasons: reputation and profitability. They are interconnected. The users frustrated by a failed app won’t pay for your product and likely will spread negative feedback.
Businesses with non-technical core operations can get confused with constantly changing trends in the fast-paced tech industry. Hiring a competent dedicated QA team can fill in this gap by setting up a clear testing process for the project from scratch.
For tech companies, both startups and enterprises, external experts can provide valuable insights that may be missed by their in-house workforce. The contractor is likely experienced in developing similar products, and the additional examination of your project by such an independent vendor can tangibly boost its quality.
An outsourcing software testing team is able to carry out various tasks for a client: manual testing, test automation team, web app testing, mobile app testing, API testing, IoT testing, ERP testing, CRM testing, and others.
The most typical reasons to Hire A Dedicated QA Team:
- You need to scale up your QA team promptly in highly competitive conditions to release your product faster than your rivals.
- You need specific niche expertise, which your in-house team lacks, and don’t want to spend time looking for rare specialists and examining them. You’d prefer to reach out to a vendor that has proven expertise with a pool of talents ready to start the project immediately.
- You need full control of your outsourcing team with its full involvement in comparison with freelance QA engineers that can work on various projects simultaneously.
- You face running out of budget and need to cut operational costs. A dedicated team model could be a reasonable solution because of rate differences on the market. Also, a supplier takes over such extra expenditures as social benefits.
- You don’t want to have the bench staff and to pay the salaries when the needed scope of work has been already completed. By hiring dedicated testers, you can finish or postpone your partnership when you reach your quality goal.
- You want to avoid wasting time on recruiting, interviewing, training the employees, and retaining them. You’d prefer to fully outsource this process and focus on business strategy.
What Does the process of building a tailored QA team look like?
Determining Objectives, needs, and Requirements
The vendor’s experts thoroughly examine the project specifications and establish the optimal team size and structure.
Selecting Appropriate Candidates
The contractor chooses QA professionals from its pool based on their skills and background that align with the project requirements.
Conducting Personal Interviews
The client is free to arrange extra interviews with potential team members to confirm their hard and soft skills.
Quick onboarding
After signing in the legal agreements, the QA team smoothly integrates into the client’s operations and starts working on the project, with guidance, access to client systems, and communication channels approved by the client.
How to Manage the Dedicated Testing Team Effectively?
Ensure early testing
Fixing bug costs rise 10 times per every new product development stage. Late testing even can lead to critical failures like in some startups. So once the testable components are ready, start the testing process to save your budget and minimize the stress.
Plan and approve a testing process
It defines the testing scope, key tasks, team responsibilities, and required resources.
There are a few ready-to-use techniques. For example, the IEEE 829 software testing standard suggests taking into account 19 factors: test items, test deliverables, risk issues, references, staffing and training needs, glossary functions, and others.
According to the Google inquiry technique, you focus on the following software development factors: implementation costs, monetary costs, maintenance costs, risks, and benefits.
Implement Code Quality Metrics
They can be created in collaboration with your dedicated team supplier if you have never had such experience before. Those, your testing team will get measurable quality indicators and will realize exactly what to test. You might consider Software Quality Model based on four main aspects: reliability, security, performance efficiency, and maintainability. For instance, maintainability evaluates weaknesses in source code. They affect comprehensibility, adaptability, testability, and ability to handle the increased load.
Every aspect provides a detailed description and a list of standards. Overall, this model includes 100+ rules that software engineers must keep in mind.
Report Bugs Effectively
When you hire a dedicated testing team, be sure that your contractor has a high standard of bug reporting. In Belitsoft, we utilize a ready-to-use template that can be modified according to the project requirements. It can include such variables as reporter, assignee, environment, issue description, priority, status, expected result, links to the story, etc.
Use suitable task management tools
Opting for the right task management tool is crucial for a successful software testing process. It ensures instant and transparent communication between QA managers, software testing engineers, and other stakeholders. Utilizing such a tool as Jira, you can see the scope of work, a thorough list of tasks, the person responsible for a particular issue, and their progress.
Encourage the cooperation
If you have an internal QA team and use a staff augmentation model, foster communication and collaboration between your in-house testers and remote ones. Encourage the expertise exchange supporting a friendly working environment without aggressive competition. Arrange team meetings to discuss common strategy and highlight each team’s contribution.