In large outsourced projects, the contractual aspects of testing are often poorly defined even though testing may be half the overall project cost. Why is this? Test activities may be split between the development organization, customer, and test outsourcing partners. When things go wrong, the test process and the contractual obligations relating to testing will come under close scrutiny. Unfortunately, many projects get their contracts wrong with regard to testing. In Paul Gerrard's experience, few organizations’ contract and legal experts know how to structure a contractual testing schedule that is fair, unambiguous, explicit, and comprehensive. As testers, we may need to help our own “experts.” Paul describes the critical aspects of a contract that must be included to ensure supplier obligations for testing are documented and will be met.

Efficiency and effectiveness are the cornerstones of successful quality assurance and test automation effort. Jeff Beange describes how RBC Financial Group successfully implemented a quality assurance and automation outsourcing engagement, using a blended onshore/offshore approach. He describes the details of the engagement model and outlines the risks they encountered. Jeff describes their mitigation strategy, governance structure, and the metrics used to evaluate their implementation. Learn a communication strategy and automation framework you can use to implement automation using an outsourcing partnership. Find out what setup is required before any outsourcing model can be successful: detailed requirements, a complete set of test data, and a test lab that is accessible to all. Jeff describes the common pitfalls of offshore engagements and the three categories of outsourcing problems-people, process, and governance.

Large organizations may have the resources for expensive, big-bang offshore outsourcing projects. But what should small- and medium-sized organizations do when tasked with outsourcing? Based on his experiences, Uttiya Dasgupta describes a usable and inexpensive process for planning an offshore outsourcing strategy for small- to medium-sized development organizations. This crawl-walk-run strategy starts with very small projects and moves to increasingly more complex ones, supported by adequate preparation for each stage. Beginning with a vision of the "run" stage, teams plan the first stages to test out processes and ensure the cultural and technology fit between the internal and outsourced organizations. Uttiya shares his insights for successful offshore outsourcing projects and, especially, the signs and metrics that tell you when you are ready to move from crawling to walking-to running.

You are asked to put together a QA group in India that will work in tandem with your US team to provide twenty-four hour support for a global financial company. And what did Judy Hallstrom, Manager of Testing Services, and Indian Project Manager, Ravi Sekhar Reddy, and their group accomplish? The successful implementation of a fully integrated QA function, from scratch, in less than one year with minimal infrastructure. Walk through the challenges and triumphs as they built their unit from the ground up with no outsourcing service company support. With obstacles ranging from leased equipment, inadequate infrastructure, and shared office space to training issues, visas, Indian Customs, and much more, Judy and Ravi have seen and overcome them all. Now, two years later, they have a global QA team with processes that meet industry recognized quality standards.

• Working with a sourcing partner vs. going it alone