Outsourcing testing

In the end of last year, we formed a separate department of test engineers to ensure quality of various kinds of IT solutions, services, information systems and mobile applications. In a short time, we managed to develop common guidelines concerning the process of quality check of supplies in projects. Along with this, specialists in the department developed steady traditions to analyze non-trivial cases and share experiences. From time to time, specialists change projects to fully understand the effectiveness of the testing process.

This year we tried several options for interaction with customers.

1. Dedicated testing. We formed an independent testing team for verification of project, implemented on the side of the customer. As part of this service, the corporate SharePoint system is being tested for one of the clients.

Work process was organized the following way:

• Testing is carried out on the test bench of the contractor, where updates are regularly received.
• The fixation of the current progress and time tracking is done in the bug tracking system of the contractor.
• After accumulating a certain number of bug fixes and features, the customer updates the test system, and the testing team takes all the tasks that checking in their version.
• If any errors are found, the tester starts a separate bug, if it is not connected with the current task, or describes errors in the comment to the task and forwards it to Reopen to the developer.

Moreover, scripts for deploying the SharePoint system are run on the test bench to simulate deployment. In this case, deployment does not always go well. Therefore, after each system update, it was decided to conduct smoke testing, which covers the important functions necessary for further testing of the entire system.

2. Outstaff. An individual tester is integrated into the development team, in our case, into a teleworkers team.

The system under test is designed for monitoring and control of data. The tester had a task to provide the fastest possible feedback on the product under development, namely:

• Errors from the bug-fixes and new functional sent for inspection;
• Suggestions for improving the existing functional;
• Suggestions for improvement and errors on the functional in development.
• Signaling on poor product quality and making necessary correсtions to the development process.

The work was organized according to the following process:

• All work with tasks is carried out in TFS, so it is handy to do the testing using MTM 2013.
• Under the testing is also UserStory (business functional - containing several sub-tasks for implementation).
• Before the testing, checklists and test cases are created in MTM, according them the future testing is carried out.
• If necessary, based on this data, evaluation of the testing work can be performed.
• If any errors are found, the tester starts a separate bug, if it is not connected with the current task, or describes errors in the comment to the task and forwards it to Reopen to the developer.

Both scenarios of work with the development team are selected in the most convenient way for the customer service, in order to increase the development productivity and reduce the projects expenses.

In the new year, we are planning to grow in the direction of outsourcing testing. We have more certifications, conferences and, of course, new projects scheduled. We are ready for the challenge of your products and applications testing. We will find the best variant of testing on the project and follow our corporate slogan – Superior Software is born here!

You are welcome to get a more detailed description of quality assurance service on our website and contact us.