TESTCo Software Test Engineers teamed up to find creative ways to do more with less

TESTCo Software Test Engineers teamed up to find creative ways to do more with less – and always doing so with a positive attitude. Their commitment to the Journyx R&D team is greatly appreciated. We would be lost without TESTCo, and their hard work will be instrumental in improving conditions this new year.

In addition to the outstanding value we receive, I also genuinely enjoy our weekly stand-up time. The TESTCo team is a pleasure to work with.

 

Meredith Z.

The QA Manager is the force of quality improvement behind the scenes

TESTCo’s QA Manager is the force of quality improvement behind the scenes. His ability to collaborate across departments has fostered a culture of working together, where his insights and suggestions have been invaluable in putting AccuBuild on a path to enhance our product development procedures. His guidance and mentorship have not only elevated the quality of work but also began to cultivate a team that is enthusiastic about maintaining excellence.

Tracy B.

AccuBuild:  ConstructionPayroll.com

Fast Response, Quick Adjustments

I appreciate the early validation work and all of the information that TESTCo team provides us.

Since you’ve been with us, you’ve always shown us the way you put your hard work and effort to get everything done smoothly.

Engineers’ curiosity, planning, and technical skills enabled fast response time and quick adjustments to the changes we did during the sprints. So I couldn’t expect anything better than what you guys always deliver to us.

Well, kudos to TESTCo QuriosAlways team!

Increased Our Revenue Velocity

When I took over product management at my small software start up, we had never employed anyone as a dedicated product manager. We had no QA process to speak of, and the company nearly went of business due to the costs of supporting a very low quality product release. QA was all ad-hoc and fell primarily to the engineers writing the code for bug fixes and new features. As part of establishing product management best practices, I started looking for a way to build out standard QA processes. Needless to say I was worried about the company as a going concern, and improving the quality of our products was key to righting the ship.We nearly went out of business due to the costs of a low quality release. First and foremost, I needed to make sure that future releases achieved some minimum viable level of quality. I also needed a process that was repeatable and that I could afford to carry out for each new release. So while quality was our biggest pain point, standardization and budget/affordability were also concerns.

We started out by hiring a QA resource in-house. Given our budget, we opted for someone without a lot of experience. This tester did a good job of getting us started on standardization of process, but we didn’t have enough capacity to get scalable standard tools and coverage to meet our minimum quality level. More importantly, training and replacement were huge obstacles, both in terms of time and money. When our tester moved on to another job, we had to practically start over when hiring a new tester to take the position, and we were essentially without QA throughout the new hire training period.

After having difficulty finding a good option for an in-house tester later, we did try to outsource QA with an offshore firm. While the offshore firm was affordable, we ended up getting nothing of value after working with them for about a year. The testers were not managed well, no one was expert enough to offer us best practices advice, AND the testers were not good at letting us know when they did not understand instructions.

In the end, we continued to limp along with Excel-based test cases that our in-house testers had developed. As product manager, I was spending over 50% of my time covering QA on my own. So it’s not a surprise that the rest of our product management efforts suffered. Then, we found TestCo. TestCo offered extensive QA process and management expertise, along with a flexible pool of testing resources, that allowed us to achieve our product quality goals within our budget constraints. I have more confidence in TestCo than any other partner I have ever worked with. I know that when I get too busy to monitor our QA activities, they can be trusted to keep QA running smoothly and make sure I’m aware of what needs my attention. I no longer have to worry about maintaining QA at some minimum acceptable level. I can look to the future and aim for top quality products, and TestCo will advise me on how to do just that.

TestCo, first and foremost, is my primary resource for QA best practices. They advise me on how to improve what we are currently doing, and they look for opportunities to expand our efforts to make the process more efficient and comprehensive. As part of the advising, they also do the hard work of finding the right resources for my projects and ensuring that they are fully trained to do the work. After the testers have been engaged for a project, they offer the additional benefit of experienced QA professionals who manage the team of testers.

All of these benefits allow me to focus on critical product management like building products that my customers want to buy! In addition to reducing our historical support costs by improving the quality of our product releases, they are also helping us to make our goal of continuous delivery happen. By shortening our test cycles with automation and plugging testers into the development process while new feature code is being written, we are expanding our ability to deliver value to the market faster and increase our revenue velocity as a result.

Two Major Assets

TESTCo brings to the table two major assets. The first is the formal software QA testing experiences and methodology that we can benefit from TESTCo’s best practices. The second is the varying resource demands we have depending on release cycles.

Having a local presence that provides daily status updates is invaluable. I believe the key to success with offshore software testing or development is the constant communication and getting issues resolved as soon as they occur. Going forward, we expect that TESTCo will enable us to better handle the peak demands in both development and QA.

Consistently Delivered

I have to say that our experience with TESTCo has been very positive for the two years we’ve been working with them. We’ve been in India with them, and also in Ukraine, and they have consistently delivered. In fact, we are in the process of expanding our relationship with them for the third time in those two years. We have about 8 people in Ukraine (or openings for up to 8, I believe) right now. They are providing software QA testing and automated software testing now, and we’ve just added engineering to the mix in the last week or so… two thumbs up.

Easy and Painless

Our company has never outsourced software QA testing work before and TESTCo made it both easy and painless. Throughout the process, daily check-ins and progress reports were available; our project manager made sure that we were always getting the work for which we were paying, and the entire process was kept on track and on budget.

Fleshed Out the QA Process

When we first engaged TESTCo, we had a detailed dev process with a place noted for functional QA testing, but the QA processes weren’t fully in place and we had just started building test cases. I was extremely busy as the development manager for the company and my initial concern was that it would take a lot of my time to ensure that outsourcing software QA testing services would go smoothly.

But working with TESTCo has been great! They ramped quickly and within two weeks TESTCo fleshed out the QA process for us. Today our relationship is very productive as they handle the day-to-day management of functional QA so I can focus on development. Using TESTCo has enabled me to be as hands off as I need to be while keeping me informed of the status of each product being tested.

Instantaneous Expertise

TESTCo provided instantaneous expertise in software QA testing that integrated well with our development process.

Our testing needs vary throughout the year. TESTCo provides flexible software testing services that ramps up when we need it. Plus, their engineers dig deep into our application looking for vulnerabilities that we may not have considered.

TESTCo’s process dovetails with our agile development methods, which facilitates a ‘develop today and test tonight’ methodology. TESTCo staff are consummate collaborators; enhancing our process as necessary, and offering solutions on demand. TESTCo reacts quickly to our changing software QA testing needs. They work closely with us to formulate testing plans based on our priorities, and then shift resources quickly when our priorities change. Our local testing manager stays in constant communication with us, and is a reliable and integral part of our development team. It is obvious that TESTCo measures their success by our success.

Peace of Mind

We work with TESTCo because I did the research and found it to be the best option for our company at this point in our lifecycle.  We needed to be MS OEM certified ASAP and the TESTCo team was able to jump in and get it done. The process is not easy and TESTCo’s experience of having done it before was invaluable. Personally, TESTCo provides me with peace of mind.  I know when I request something to be tested it will be done quickly, done well, and done with a lot of attention to detail.

Integrated Into Our Culture

We had a customer with a complex environment that needed both support and customization assistance quickly. This request was further complicated by the fact that expert resources and the customer resources were in a variety of global locations.

TESTCo provided staff with strong technical skills and the personality to propose creative solutions without waiting for direction. Hand-offs between folks around the organization were seamless.

I am most pleased with how easily the TESTCo staff have integrated into the Lombardi culture and their ability to work in an independent fashion. TESTCo required no handholding or remedial guidance. The entire group eats, drinks and breaths the company ethos.

Fewer Customer Complaints

Now that we have TESTCo in place, we’re experiencing fewer customer complaints. We have one test environment for changes and another for pre-production. Before, we’d just have users test the finished product. Now, TESTCo test scripts cover all possible scenarios for application failure. That’s helped a great deal. The system is much more stable than before. And the developers don’t have to waste their time on testing fire-drills.