Case Study: Software Testing Outsourcing (On-site Functional)

Challenge: A major printing firm with four offices / print centers across the U.S. was failing to meet their customers’ quality standards. Customer retention and the high cost of print job reruns were major problems. Limited and unstructured testing was performed by software developers and client services representatives. When we were contacted by the CIO, a troubled project for a key customer was only a few weeks away from implementation. The project’s documentation was poor and very little testing had been performed by the developers.

Solution: Recognizing that the developers and client services representatives did not have the time or the skills to perform thorough testing, we quickly assembled at the client’s site a testing team staffed with a test team lead and QA testers. Using proven testing practices, the QA testing team defined test cases while simultaneously discovering undocumented requirements. Defect management and test metrics were also put into place during test execution. The QA testing team reported directly to the CIO to provide an independent evaluation of the project’s quality.

Following this initial project, the QA testing team performed functional testing for all projects and built a reusable regression test suite for the client’s web, client server, and AS/400 applications. We directly managed and staffed the on-site QA testing team for two years with up to six testers. This gave the CIO flexibility to expand and contract the size of the team based on the IT project workload. We then assisted in recruiting contract-for-hire resources and direct hire employees, including recruiting the QA Manager.

Result: Independent QA testing became a way of life at the printing firm with QA testing time built into each project. The completeness and clarity of project requirements improved as QA identified gaps in requirements during test planning. The number of defects found in production decreased as a result of QA’s structured functional testing and regression testing leading to more satisfied customers.