QA and testing crowdsourcing, remote work and other ‘stuff’
So, the more I work with companies, the more I’m starting to see that companies of all sizes could use a QA/testing SME for testing during ramp up time, process tweeking, training, helping hire, tool assessment, documentation, and more. All this and not having to pay for a full-time employee. You can call last minute and we’ll fit you in, you can need 5 hours, or 50, and we’re there! Initially there’s ramp up time the first time out, but once we’ve done an initial needs assessment and get to know your product and customers, we just continue to build our knowledge and come in and out as you need us.
Some of the things we can do both on site and remote:
-Offset the test team on ramp up time
-All the things that the current team doesn’ have time to do like:
· test case writing
· tool assessments (automation, test case management, bug tracking, etc)
· regression testing
· functional testing, UI, you name it
-Training and coaching existing team members
-Helping hire
-Documentation/Tech writing
-Establishing processes that match environmental needs
-Help with transitioning to Agile teams
-Test plan/strategy writing
-etc. etc. etc.
Too much to list…and probably much I would miss if I tried to list it. I know there’s value in this because we ramp up fast and get it done well, and on time.
As a full timer, there have been many times, between projects, that I have sat around with my testing team as they’ve twiddled their thumbs. I was surprised that this was ok for corporate. The wasted time and money. I did what I could to keep them, and myself, busy, but for very small testing projects, there was really not much more they could have done during this time. We used one of these times to overhaul our methodology to exploratory testing, and that was great! But other times, I watched moral take quite a dive with everyone. Then there were times when I watched individuals on other teams waste their time on reports they thought management needed or wanted. They agonized over the color scheme, column sizes, and a lot more. As a business owner, I wonder now what that translates into cost? Cost in time, money, creativity, moral, etc. etc. The energy spent on these useless reports. Precious time and money lost that could have been spent on testing. I’m not saying the reports are useless. I’m saying that they weren’t done efficiently. There was a LOT of muda. And I can’t stand muda!! It really all boils down to wasting life on things that don’t matter. And I want to make the most out of my life…and help others do the same…
Is having a full time employee worth the overhead? Sometimes it is. But I bet there are quite a few times when it’s not. I’ve seen it with tech writers, and I’ve seen it with QA/testing. I’ve even seen it with some developers on small projects. To save time, money and be super efficient, you need to assess your needs and come up with a solution that worx4you. That’s where we come in!!!! :)
