Outsourced Test Competency Centre

 

The methodology that applies best practice within testing disciplines across multiple projects

  • Makes available the knowledge, experience and resource of Europe's largest independent testing group without incurring much of the cost
  • Provides the common disciplines of effective testing to all project managers for best practice
  • Provides support from a central point to instigate the most effective testing across projects
  • Reduces the cost of testing by applying the correct testing resource in the most efficient manner
  • Ensures control is retained by the business by delivering effective reporting and metrics

 

 

 

The SQS-UK Test Competency Centre (TCC) makes available experienced Project Managers and Senior Consultants and ISEB qualified Test Managers, Test Consultants and Testers together with backup training and recruitment resources, tools and methodologies, error logs and professional disciplines, risk management and quality standards, tools and resources, templates and reporting dashboards. TCC optimizes the working of the in house testing facility by becoming a central point within the customers testing environment that allows the testing process and associated methodologies to be effectively managed and controlled. TCC is designed to manage improve and report against the customers testing process.

TCC is divided into eight areas of competency:

Test Management, Reporting and System Mediation
Daily functions of Test Management are carried out within this discipline. Management and reporting on resources, management of the Test Strategy, Test Plans, operations, change control and configuration management are also executed here.

Mediation between user, developers and package suppliers is also effected allowing better communication between parties and resulting in more effective use of available in house resources.

Test Strategies and Planning
A Test Strategy is prepared that defines the best way in which testing can be initiated to fit the requirements of all current projects and make best use of the available resources. This is then communicated affectively to all those involved. The strategy will allocate in house resources so that they are used most effectively and highlights missing or incomplete resources, knowledge or experience.

Test Planning commences after the strategy is agreed and plans the development and implementation of the needed test scripts to ensure complete testing of the applications and systems is achieved.

Training and Recruitment
When an organization is striving to implement mission critical improvements, IT Projects are often a major part of the improvement process. When the need for effective testing becomes pressing and existing staff experience and knowledge needs to be augmented, the SQS-UK Test Competency Centre can not only supply quality interim staff to plug the gaps but can also provide specific training courses - delivered by testers, for testers - to address the immediate needs.

Ongoing training and career development be provided to employees to enable them to improve their effectiveness and remain up to date with the latest methodologies.

Test Process Improvement
In some organizations, testing disciplines may be immature or even non-existent. Even the best test processes need to evolve to address the business need. An SQS-UK Test Optimisation Programme (TOP) enables a business to identify areas of strength and weakness, plan improvement solutions and, by working as a team with the TCC, raise standards, improve methodologies and reduce both time to implementation and costs.

Secondments and Resourcing
During the execution of any testing phase, there is a need for testing resource. This need may be reflected in the skill sets of the in-house team or, more often, key skills and experience are missing or not available at the correct time. A matrix is mapped of key skills available in the in-house teams and missing skills highlighted. Secondments from other parts of the organization, new resourcing solutions or implementation within the TCC of correctly skilled resource from SQS-UK are then arranged.

All SQS-UK personnel are ISEB qualified professionals and have the added advantage of being accompanied by the SQS Testers Kitbag that comprises tools and methodologies, error logs and professional disciplines, risk management and quality standards, error management tools and resources, templates and reporting dashboards - designed to ensure that resource makes an immediate impact on the programme.

Test Assessments
To ensure that the programme can gain immediate impetus, a test assessment is undertaken at the outset of the TCC implementation. This identifies areas of weakness and strength, challenges the current testing process and makes a full report of these strengths and weaknesses. This enables an informed decision as to future strategy to be made and produce a footpath to be followed that leads to increased test process improvement.

Partnership and Outsourcing of Testing
Testing is not a "3rd Party Vendor" situation. It must be a partnership arrangement. You can outsource the testing but you cannot outsource the responsibility for the testing.

Testing is responsible for the quality of an organizations business process implementation. Responsibility for these business critical processes must remain with management. The SQS-UK TCC ensures that control remains with management by implementing a dashboard reporting system to provide high-level management information that enables effective decision making to be made.

The TCC is scaleable and can easily be monitored by the customer to ensure the needed resource levels are achieved - yet ensuring that in-house resources are 100% utilized.

Even if the business decision taken is that fully outsourced testing is what is needed, the TCC can provide the right level of personnel with the right knowledge and experience, effective management of the complete outsourced testing project and reporting to prove effectiveness.


Download the Test Competency Centre information