So you want to build out a QA team...

Your app has little to no automated test coverage, and it’s time to do something about it. As a manager, you think “I’ll build out a QA team to add the test coverage we need.”

You develop a plan to hire a few experienced test engineers, and maybe someone to manage them. Problem solved, right?

Wrong.

While the team you hired may have many years of experience with your testing platform of choice, they don’t know your product. They don’t know your customers. They don’t know your industry. The team you hired to determine if your app works correctly doesn’t have any idea how your app should work. Until you train them.

Who will train them?

Most test engineers learn the intended behavior of the app as the developers build it - one user story at a time. Do you have a repository of user stories for your new QA team to reopen? If so, are you ready to manage two development streams - one for new stories and one for revisiting old stories? Do you expect the team to build out automation for both old and new stories simultaneously? If so, you’ll need more test engineers.

If you don’t have a backlog of stories, do you have someone that knows the product well enough and has time to train them? If you do, great! But, you likely don’t have someone that has the time and knowledge already on your team. Everyone on your team is likely already fully committed.

Not training your new QA team

What happens if you hire the QA team and don’t train them? The team has no choice but to ask your developers to train them - one question at a time - or just assume that the current behavior of the app is the correct behavior. They won’t know if the behavior they code into the test automation is correct or not. When the test fails, someone that knows how the app should work - someone not on the QA team you hired - will need to determine if there’s a defect.

Nearly every team faces this dilemma. Most managers rationalize wasting significant time and money by asserting that some test automation is better than no test automation. They never reflect on whether the investment was worth it, because they know it likely wasn’t.

If this all sounds familiar, don’t worry. This is what most teams did because this was the only option. Until now.

Use Proof’d instead

With Proof’d, the team you already have - the team that already knows how the app should work - can complete the automated testing you need. Proof’d automatically builds out the test coverage you need. Proof’d is the alternative to building out the QA team.

Our automated testing platform is built for startups, enterprises, and any other organization that develops software. Schedule a quick call with us and find out how we can help you test everything with the team you have.