Testing as integral part of software production.
Testing as integral part of software production.
The creation of high-quality software product may require the use of well-balanced efforts of several project teams or even companies. It is often possible to achieve the best results through the outsourcing of testing. To efficiently use this approach, you must know how to properly organize an interaction with the testing agency and avoid the usual mistakes.
Everyone who, in one way or another, have dealt with the computers, have noted, how important the software quality is. This definition, difficult to define and measure, can determine not only the user’s mood, but the life and safety of the world as a whole. Continuing the pretentious topic on the “Hollywood manner” of saving civilization, we should note that the role of superheroes in this action movie is assumed by the heads of IT departments. It depends on them how quality the software product is, if it meets the demands of customers and is it safe to use. How to win this battle? In this article we will not consider this problem in all its diversity, but consciously focus on one, but very important aspect of the software quality assurance (independent testing and one of its varieties- so called “outsourcing”).
No matter if your organization has the testing department, such phase is always present in the production cycle- clearly or hidden. In the last case, certain testing is performed by the testing service providers or the “tested” software customers. The modern quality standards, such as ISO 9001 and CMM, pay special attention to the testing, considering it as a separate vital stage of software creation.
We should note that within the general strategy of QA, testing is responsible for the identification of the program code defects, in contrast to the organizational measures, aimed at the prevention of defects. As mentioned above, no matter if your company uses some standard or technique of QA, you can’t avoid this testing stage. However, you can make it either on your own or involving an independent company or a group of persons (we will call such company or group “testing agency”). In this case we deal with the outsourcing of testing. It should be distinguished from the beta-testing, when the functional test is performed by a large number of general users that doesn’t apply systematic approach to the testing, but check how good the software operates in the conditions, characteristic to the beta-testers. On the contrary, testing agencies use the industrial methods of testing, i.e. systemize the result obtained and offer the ways of the product improvement.