Quality Assurance is an essential part of any software development lifecycle. It is a crucial area where every company puts the best foot forward to get the optimum result. That is why determining the nature of the QA team as a dedicated in-house testing team or as an outsourced team from a specialized company is one of the major decisions. The main advantage of the in-house testing team is that you can control the whole process as an organization while getting a prompt response. But at the same time, there are a few issues that one comes across while working with an in-house testing team.
The following are the most crucial concerns while working with In-House Testing Teams:
Cost
One of the most substantial disadvantage associated with an in-house testing pattern is cost. When you maintain your own QA team, you need to hire skilled people, incur the cost of process-specific training for them and of course must pay the monthly salary.
Universal Delivery Model
Since most of the IT operations follow the global delivery model you need associates available maybe for 24 hours basis based on your client’s time zone and availability. That means you need more resources to hire for QA team. This is a big trial for the in-house testing team. On the other hand, they may need to be available at odd hours depending on the status of issues which create stress on them resulting in less productivity.
Unstable Testing Environment
Most of the cases in-house testing team suffers due to server issues or network issues that create major problems in time bound testing process.
Incompatible Testing Tools
Not all the testing tools are suitable for all applications. But sometimes a testing team is forced to continue with such incompatible tool just because the organization may have purchased the license or clients have opted for the tool. So, the incompatible demands will help in the acceleration of the work as well.
Single Testing Team for Multiple Projects
An in-house testing team usually handles multiple projects at a time and with a stringent timeline. This often makes them reluctant on other possible scenarios those are beyond specified test cases. Consequently, there is a high possibility that some important testing scenarios are skipped unintentionally which in future can cause production issues.
Agile Model and Regression Testing
Today’s software development strategy follows agile methodology which demands more regression testing within a short span of time. Sometimes it causes tremendous work pressure to the testers for both manual as well automation testing.
Skilled Professionals
Getting skilled testers is a big challenge for an organization. Testing is not about running few test cases based on technical and functional scenarios. In-depth testing needs domain and business knowledge as well. Hiring such resources on a full-time basis is a real intimidating task for companies. Moreover, right talent crunch is an ongoing problem that companies face all the time.
Simulation of Real Test Environment
Cloud-based testing is a new hype in the market. Specifically, for mobile applications, it is a need. This type of testing needs versatile areas to test like network specific testing, time zone, localizations and most importantly load testing. An in-house testing team cannot give complete coverage of all these areas just by emulation or simulation techniques.
Inter-Team Communication
Since developers and testers belong to the same organization, it is very challenging to maintain good communication when dealing with developmental bugs. Testers need to be very careful and effective communicators to handle the situation otherwise it will create conflict between teams.
Is Outsourcing or External Testing the Solution?
If you go for external testing, you can hit almost all the issues as mentioned above effectively. Moreover, once you outsource the testing job, you will be more focused on other important business areas like marketing, customer relationship and much more. Another important point is most of the testing service companies employ certified, skilled and experienced professionals round the clock. Hence, this is a more operative solution at a lower cost for an organization without involving full-time resources and infrastructural setup.
