Introduction
Quality assurance is an essential part of the software development cycle. Deciding whether to test in-house or choose an external independent testing team can be a struggle.
This article will present the advantages and disadvantages of having test independence within a project and an in-house testing team.
As a first step, providing testers with test independence leads to a higher rate of finding bugs. Testers provide additional input to the code author, allowing them to find missing behaviors or errors that may have been missed during the development process. Communicating with the development team can provide a mix of familiarity with the product and an independent opinion provided by the tester.
Levels of Test Independence
- No independent testers – developers testing their own code is the only form of testing available.
- Independent developers or testers within the development teams or the project team.
- Independent test team or group within the organization, reporting to project management or executive management.
- Independent testers from the business organization
- Independent testers external to the organization, either working on-site (in-house) or off-site (outsourcing).
It’s usually best to have multiple test levels, with some of these levels handled by independent testers. We have found that it works best for most projects. Additionally, developers should participate in testing, especially at the lower levels. By doing that, they can exercise control over the quality of their work.
How testing independence is implemented varies depending on the software development lifecycle model. For example, in Agile development, testers may be part of a development team. In some organizations using Agile methods, these testers may be considered part of a larger independent test team. Additionally, product owners may perform acceptance testing to validate user stories at the end of each iteration.
In-house testing team
- The development team can be biased toward testing their product. An unbiased and fresh point of view reveals defects that couldn’t be discovered otherwise.
- We regularly see the development manager reaching the testers – that’s harmful to the project. You cannot get the best out of your test engineers if they report issues to the person whose other team is responsible for them. In such scenarios, the metrics and quality might be manipulated. When testers are free from inhibitions, they can seek out more defects or discrepancies than those already working within the developing team.
- Testers might work in the same environment/location as the development team. Not having a different environment at a completely different location might hide certain bugs from happening.
- Limited staff pool. Having a local testing team will require finding talents from a limited pool of candidates in your surrounding area and their management and training expenses.
- Limited devices to test with since they most likely will need to share them with the developers.
Independent testing team
- Unbiased results. We are likely to identify different kinds of failures than developers because of our diverse backgrounds, technical perspectives, and biases.
- Testers can verify, challenge, or disprove stakeholder assumptions during the system’s specification and implementation.
- We report directly and objectively about the system under test without pressure from the hiring company.
- Less management work. No need to hire and train testers.
- Impartiality. You get a fair assessment of the quality of the code. The metrics, data, and reports are relevant, honest, and unbiased.
- All the skills you need under one roof. You can rely entirely on one provider to care for your QA needs. This is more likely to happen with an independent, specialized QA firm than with a software development firm.
- We have a broader knowledge of the application’s regression history than a developer. We have become familiar with all the system’s nuances and are proficient at testing.
- We are not afraid of trial and error. Failing to find a bug the first time only means that we need to think outside the box. We don’t accept that bugs are fixed unless we have proof.
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