Is QA Outsourcing Still Worth Today?
While researching to write my previous blog post “Bridging the Gap: Collaboration Between Developers and QA”, I got to know many companies still doing QA outsourcing. As per them, outsourcing QA to an external party has many benefits.
Does it work today? I believe this will be a controversial topic.
Let’s find out…
If you haven’t read my previous article, check the following link. This article is also based on some of the facts that I have discussed in that article. So it’s worth visiting that to understand what I will discuss here.
Benefits of Outsourcing QA
As per the outsourcing companies, these are the benefits companies will get when they outsource QA.
- Cost savings
- Access to specialized expertise
- Increased flexibility
- Scalability
It seems a fair deal since they have a large pool of talented skill pools readily available for your needs.
But in the long term, is it worth it?
Current trends in software Quality Assurance.
As discussed in my article “Bridging the Gap: Collaboration Between Developers and QA” companies are moving to the Shift Left approach. We are moving away from the waterfall method as Agile development becomes more popular.
So, QA is part of the full software development life cycle (SDLC). Quality Assurance is not a part of a separate team.
For example, in an Agile organization like Spotify, developers and QA are usually in one team, and everyone is in small teams. The described setup ensures feedback and fast prototyping, which enhances both the quality and speed of development.
LinkedIn provides incentives for developers to attend meetings known as the bug bash, where everyone, including QA, fixes bugs. This not only makes the developers realize how much effort is invested by QA but also helps the QA to realize how much trouble the developers go through.
Another example is Google, where QA engineers, referred to as Software Engineers in Tests (SETs), are embedded within development teams. They are the ones who write the test code, create the testing frameworks and make testing a part of the development process rather than an add-on.
So as you can see there are no separate QA teams in market-leading innovative companies.
Disadvantages of Outsourcing QA
‘Us’ and ‘Them’ Mentality
Developers may perceive that QA hinders their progress, while on the other hand, QA may consider developers less serious about the project because they don’t see how developers are working. When an external party does QA, things can be worse because those companies have to provide metrics to retain the business. So toxic culture will grow.
Different goals and objectives
Developers and QA should have the same goals and metrics to achieve better collaboration. Bug tracking no longer has to be considered a failure but can be looked at as a way to improve. It can be organized around goals such as decreasing the number of post-release defects or increasing user satisfaction.
So it’s needless to say how the outsourced team will behave on this matter.
Wait until the final product
In outsourcing, after the development, external QA teams will get the product for testing. So if those teams find an issue in the product it will be costly to correct.
Product Quality is not only the QA team’s responsibility
In modern software development approaches, quality is an effort of the whole team, not only a QA team's responsibility. So there is a question whether external QA teams fit into this.
Creates knowledge GAP in internal teams
Since the company is spending on outsourcing the external team, the internal team don’t have exposure to the new tech stack. So even the maintenance of the test automation framework can be hard for them since they were not involved in the process.
Here’s my two cents
With the introduction of Agile and Shift Left approaches the QA team is not a separate team anymore. QA team should start quality assurance at the beginning of the SDLC and collaboratively work with developers, stakeholders, business analysts, etc.
In order to achieve a common goal of delivering high-quality software, the whole team should work together on a common objective. I doubt this will be achievable since the external team is working on the sole objective of earning profits.
Importantly, you will make the in-house QA team skillless.
Read about the shift-left approach in this article.
