Which software testing staffing model is right for you?
Note: Occasionally a client may rewrite work or change it enough that I no longer feel it accurately represents the work that I did. In those cases, I keep my version here, so that you can see what my work looks like, and so that I don’t misrepresent work as mine that wasn’t. This piece was accepted and paid for by Testlio.com and edited heavily.
A+ developers are in high demand in today’s tight job market, and they know it. Once on staff, even the quickest dev teams will be consistently under the gun and extra busy. Force them to do too much manual testing and burnout is likely or worse yet – they’ll leave for greener pastures. Even if developers stick around, constant testing can pull developers away from crucial dev work, as Testlio’s partner Bright Health found out. After discovering that regression testing was killing productivity, Bright Health leveraged Testlio’s managed services to scale testing, increasing developer efficiency and feature-readiness at two times ROI.
Thorough testing on multiple platforms and devices is the only way to ensure quality. Whether you have a great internal QA team or not, you could find yourself needing help to get that crucial job done. Then the dilemma is crowdsourcing vs. outsourcing. Do you need a quick QA burst, or a dedicated, long-term team? Here, we’ll go over crowdsourcing vs. outsourcing to help you determine which is best for you.
Crowdsourced Testing
Crowdsourced testing is the best option when speed and cost efficiency are your main concerns. By using crowdsourced, on-demand testing, you can leverage elastic testing teams who can leap into action quickly, swarm test requirements, and then go dormant. This means you can ramp up testing quickly, but not waste money paying for idle personnel.
This kind of burstable testing is available when and how often you need it. Whether you need testing on a specific device, location, or language, crowdsourcing can get you there quickly. Crowdsourced testing teams can be available 24/7/365 and on short notice. Testlio even leverages consistent testers run-to-run, to avoid issues associated with the “whoever’s available” model. At the end of the day, crowdsourced testing often outperforms other quality assurance (QA) models.
Still, crowdsourcing can come with its own concerns, mainly around the anonymous nature of the freelancing community at large. That’s why Testlio thoroughly vets all freelancers – only 3% make the cut, and even then they’re rated continually. At the same time, we strive to pay testers top rates, ensuring the best, most reliable testers stay on board and ready to take on your project.
Outsourced Testing
Outsourced testing is the older model, and historically this model offered cost savings by moving testing jobs to other locations, often overseas or in countries where the cost of living is significantly lower. Still, many outsourcing initiatives failed due to time zone, communication, culture, and talent issues.
However, now is a new moment for outsourcing. Outsourced testing staffs have the advantage of being consistent members of your team, and while this model doesn’t provide burstable testing, consistency is much better, and testers have a better context for their efforts. Especially when continuous testing is needed, having a dedicated, outsourced team onboard is just what the doctor ordered.
At Testlio, available outsourced roles include manual testers, automated testing developer/operators, test coordinators, and testing managers. Whether you choose to use part-time teams working four hours a day or dedicated full-time teams aligned to your time zone, teams can work on-site, in-country, out-of-country in your time zone, or in the most economically advantageous locations – your choice.
Outsourced testing is an excellent option if you need a consistent, knowledgeable QA team and you don’t have a big enough internal QA team. The drawback, of course, of outsourcing is that if you don’t always need testing, you could be paying team members to wait.
Combine the Best of Both Worlds
In truth, many companies need a modicum of consistency and at least some continuous testing, as well as the ability to ramp up and burst test new features and rollouts. That’s where combining the best of both worlds comes in.
For ten years, Testlio has perfected the use of crowdsourced testing to help our partners stay on top of QA requirements in the most cost-effective way possible. Now, we’ve added an outsourcing extension to our partnership model, leveraging the same top-tier client service, software platform, and other differentiators that made us #1 on G2 and Glassdoor.
But the most exciting part is that Testlio can maximize our impact by combining on-demand (crowdsourced) and dedicated (outsourced) resources across all our solution areas (QA, QE, and DX). This hybrid approach allows a whole new way of going about testing, letting you leverage crowdsourced testing teams for episodic testing like localization, language, feature, or usability tests alongside outsourced continuous testing teams taking advantage of quality engineering and fused testing concepts. If you’re ready to reduce your testing costs while gaining speed and agility, all while maintaining your rigorous QA standards, connect with us to learn how we can help. Request your free Testlio demo today