QASource Blog

QA onboarding can be an overwhelming process for any company, especially when there are so many factors to consider. Partner availability, testing infrastructure, training, domain experience, testing experience, communication skills—all of this can impact your success when working with an offshore QA team. By allocating your resources appropriately, you can proceed with onboarding your outsourced offshore QA team with ease and boost your QA productivity in the long run. Doing this successfully requires a solid understanding on how to onboard a QA team effectively. So, where should a business begin when onboarding their outsourced QA team? We recommend following this advice from our QA experts, from asking the right questions to establishing parameters for project success.

Remember the days when storing sensitive data behind a simple alphanumeric password worked just fine? Those were the days... such simple, innocent days. Every time the latest company data breach makes the news, we’re reminded that those days are over. As hackers and leakers become ever more skilled and brazen, product companies are responding by doubling down on security measures to protect their users, proprietary information, and their reputation in the market. Today, access control goes far beyond the keyboard. The advent of biometrics - the process of authenticating a person using physical or behavioral characteristics - is expanding the reach of security and increasing its effectiveness.

Back in the day, outsourcing was implemented purely as a cost-cutting measure. Organizations would assess which services were vital enough to be kept in-house, and farm out the rest to outside vendors. The work got done, but often, it just wasn’t up to par with what an onsite team could have accomplished. Reasons for this varied -- poor onboarding, insufficient communication, lack of familiarity with the product -- the list goes on.

For young product companies struggling to find their place in the market, there’s no slack. No margin for error, no wiggle room, and no second chances from customers or investors. This means that everyone and their competitors are striving for perfection, and lean teams are trying to run like those twice their size. It’s hard, but it’s the cost of innovating and succeeding.

There are still companies out there that dismiss offshore QA as a steep investment — not necessarily in terms of money, but in time. They figure that finding the right QA partner, onboarding them, transferring knowledge, and coordinating schedules will simply take too much time, and that they’re better off hiring in-house or having developers handle the QA workload. While it’s true that outsourcing your testing services comes with some initial time investment and a certain degree of change management, the benefits — huge time savings, exponential increases in productivity, and a higher-quality product — make it worth while.

Even the best teams can find ways to improve their efficiency. Making small improvements in the productivity of a QA team can significantly affect the success of your software. In our latest infographic, we've identified 6 methods you can use to increase your QA team's efficiency.

Ask just about any authority in the software testing space if you should outsource your QA testing, and you’ll get the same answer: “It depends.” It’s true - we’ve said essentially the same thing ourselves. But the truth is, outsourced QA is almost always a better choice than investing in building out a team. Simply put, when all variables are considered, it’s just a better way to work.

Organizations are increasingly using application programming interfaces (APIs) to connect their products to the outside world. Whenever you sign up for a new service and it pulls your information from Google or Facebook, or you launch a data-consuming app on your smartphone, there’s an API at work. APIs are essential for creating a simple, streamlined, and increasingly connected experience for customers and companies are finally beginning to realize their value - and to direct more resources toward their development and maintenance.

Are you growing and unable to find the right QA Talent? Outsourcing QA can be the answer to meet the growing technical needs of your project without adding a spike to your company’s budget. By outsourcing, your team can focus more on the core product activities such as development innovations, and allow the experts to tackle the QA testing. There are several advantages to outsourcing QA.