Outsourcing of testing

[Mich the Tester]

Never let the outsourced development firm pick the outsourced testing firm.

I never understand how clients fall for that trick.

Yep. Another trick is to proudly announce 'we have successfully carried out over 2000 test cases!'

[Mich the Tester]

A handy guide of statements that set alarm bells ringing for an experienced test manager who's working for the end client. PMs/dev leads take note; if you say any of these things you're likely to raise the test manager's suspicions, so don't say them.

1 This is proven technology; we don't need to test it
(who proved it? how?)

2 We have carried out over x000 test cases succesfully
(says nothing about the coverage or depth of the test set)

3 We need your test cases to be traceable to requirements
(explicit requirements can never be complete; attempt to restrict testing to only known flows)

4 You should not be carrying out negative testing
(negative testing is a meaningless concept; any flow which CAN be followed or function which CAN be reached is a valid test case. This also suggests that the vendor has not carried out any informal testing and is somewhat concerned about what will happen when an experienced tester gets his hands on their product)

5 Please tell us the test cases you plan to execute (again, suggests that the vendor has not achieved sufficient coverage)

6 We would like to review your test cases (as above, plus suspicion that vendor actually wants client to do the work)

7 We would like you to review our test cases (dangerous; anything missed in that review can be used against you)

8 This is working fine for us (maybe it is, but that doesn't take away your responsibility to help the client with his problem)

[SimonMac]

A CientCo I used to shill for used Crowd Testing, they had a list of know defects, any new ones that were uncovered were paid £10 a time with most being rejected