Useful Tips to Manage an Offshore Testing Team

It’s never too late to embrace the good, and technology is a blessing. Only the fortunate benefit from its advantages. However, with these benefits come risks, especially in the software development and testing industries. Just as technology brings opportunities, it also invites threats, such as cybercriminals targeting businesses. To counter these risks, businesses must integrate software testing as a safeguard, ensuring that vulnerabilities are addressed early. However, testing must be tailored to meet specific business needs.

Often, organizations attempt to test their critical software with limited in-house staff. But this process requires more effort and expertise than a small team of quality assurance professionals can provide. In such cases, the offshore software testing model offers a valuable solution for driving growth and productivity. While managing an offshore testing team may have its challenges, it is generally more efficient than handling the task with an in-house team. A well-defined strategy and clear guidelines can help avoid bottlenecks.

Here we have come up with the best yet useful tips to manage your offshore testing group and to get the most out of your offshore software testing services;

Tip No 1 

Check reviews, ask for recommendations, and sign NDA – When you plan to outsource your testing efforts, there comes a pool of vendors to choose from. This is the time organizations have to be very careful. There are plenty of vendors that are providing offshore software testing services but it depends upon you whether you become successful in choosing a trusted offshore partner for you. 

For this purpose, all it is suggested for you is to check out the reviews of the vendors from different websites. Look out for the recommendations from your friends and past colleagues in the industry, this way you can ask someone you know about the process they’ve been through with a team of testing engineers, the drawbacks of working with this particular team, and other vital details.

Besides checking reviews and asking for recommendations from colleagues, it is significant to sign a Non-Disclosure Document (NDA) between you and the offshore group with whom you partner for testing efforts. A non-disclosure agreement is a contract between two parties that establishes the confidentiality of the information they share. This agreement should be signed before any confidential information is disclosed.

Tip No 2

Ensure the reduction of communication gaps – When it comes to working on-premises, there are a lot of ways to communicate including sometimes discussing any new product feature in the market or the latest technology on lunch, sometimes having formal meetings with the board, discussing important aspects of projects at team time, etc. Emails, sticky notes and sometimes asking other staff members to communicate the matter to the concerned, these all are the ways of communicating in-house. This seems quite a perfect working environment.

But this seems imperfect when you are working with the offshore teams. Some of the practical ways to make it possible to effectively communicate with your long distanced partners are;

1. Creation of a list of members, where you can contact everyone, including office phone numbers, mobile numbers, emails, Skype, etc. Also, add some personal information.
2. As a manager make it a habit to start your day by greeting your long distanced team via skype or other channels as you greet your onsite team. 
3. Encourage members to use communications mediums like skype or phone to have read facial or voice expressions also. 
4. Ask your members to conduct as many video conferences as possible with your offshore testing teams. 

Tip No 3

Make sure everyone is aware of the project status – Every morning or afternoon, spend 30 minutes in a synchronized meeting. Each member will speak about his work yesterday and his work that day. Make sure that everyone knows what others are doing, and encourage engineers to provide feedback and help other members, whether they are in the same location or not. If you work in an agile environment, this may be your standard “daily”, but this is not the case for most.

However, whether you are working agile, waterfall, or using your own methods, this type of synchronized meeting will make your individual group members feel like they are involved and become part of each other’s work. It also allows you as a manager to know what each team member is doing and the challenges he faces, without the need to micromanage their work.

One thing to consider is to keep these meetings short and focused.

Tip No 4 

Adapt to your defect/issue management process – Most projects use management tools to record and track defects because they can be operated from onshore or offshore locations. However, many projects cannot solve the problem of defect/issue management because they cannot solve the functional, technical, and business-related queries that the offshore team may encounter during the testing phase. This is why you should ensure that they use certain web-driven document management systems correctly.

Conclusion

Software testing is something that has a lot to do with an organization’s growth and development. As it ensures the quality of software products. That’s why whenever you plan to test your products or applications be very conscious about the method you choose. Offshore software testing services are one of the most common ways of conducting testing but to get the most out of it, good and effective management must be a matter of concern. An organization is said to be productive if its internal outstanding management of business operations.