There is a bewildering array of “test consultancies”, quote marked as many are just agencies in disguise. If your need is pure resourcing, identified within your company, then I am sure there is little difference between them. But give then access to your project, and you will pay the price. Consultancies have a vested interest in making you feel bad about yourself. For myself, a consultant should point out weaknesses but not before coming up with possible solutions. Sadly, upper management are generally easily conned by the QA-sell, and no slur of them – upper management generally make decisions based on what is said, not what is evaluated. And QA is awash with great terminology. An effective Test Consultant can easily pull a project to pieces, and most certainly will not recommend that any of your existing test process remain. Think about it – what consultancy is ever going to tell you that you are doing a good job, nto when their scope of work is based on how bad you think you are doing. But that is not what they should be doing.
There are more honest consultancies out there, and we like to think we are one of them, as behind our analytical approach, is understanding that a project comprises of human beings, and it is very easy to demoralise staff under stress. Be wary of consultancies promising answers to all your ills – they are lying – improvements within constraints of your resources and budget are far more valuable. From our experience in aggressive start-ups, we have learnt anything in possible in any timeframe. And contingency planning is key here. For example, you have to have a go-live with minimal testing due to timeframe? Fine, go for it – but back it up with structured live user support, and ongoing testing on live system. Go-live does not mean end of testing – a very common misconception.
jaffamonkey 