Things to be wary about when evaluating testing consultancies. Unfortunately the drive behind most test consultancies is to ramp up scope by default, and therefore ramp up test resources accordingly. It is business like any other, and business doesnt survive on charity, but honesty and transparency go a long way to assuring business confidence and improving the overall testing process. There is a fine balance between genuine testing consutlancy, and getting enough work to warrant their trouble. If the remit is simply to make a company paranoid, then effectively the consutlancy is introducing a new negative force (which of course they will be there to combat). Effective test consutlancy is QA (Quality Assurance), which is about confidence.
- Business confidence in that they get what they expected.
- Confidence in project team that QA is providing added benefit to the development and signoff process.
- Most importantly, confidence that QA can help with preventative measures.
Consultancies shouldn’t just adopt a “more is better” policy, when effective test assurance processes will do the actual job required of a consutlancy – i.e. consultancy! If you want to take a test consultancy route, make sure you pick one where the actual testing service is minimal focus. There are pnety of testing companies that sepcialise in this area – propviding resource to assist you with testing, onshore or offshore. But what is probably more value to a business is help with overall test process, rather than just testing resource, which is simply masking fundamental issues.
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