Guidance for offshore testing squad

There are lots of problems with training the testing team due to many unfavorable facts. Training your offshore test team can stop these troubles. But training an offshore team is different from training your domestic team. Your offshore test team is likely to be more technically skilled than your domestic test team. But the need for training remains.

Need for training in various fields

The most significant fact to make sure test project accomplish is that offshore team need extra training in working with the domestic teams, communication and meeting etiquette, work ethics, and in many cases conversational and technical English. This may not be a complete list of the soft skills your test team needs for project success. Offshore teams will vary widely in their experience level and their cultural background, so the training needs will also vary widely.

Effective training

The requirement for increased management oversight of offshore teams is widely known to be the biggest pain point for domestic staff. Whether it is too many late-night phone calls, not getting the work done on time or simply a greater need for hands-on project management, you can tackle all these issues with effective training. Use training to set and discuss expectations, layout processes and procedures and most importantly open doors for greater communication and visibility. Training should also be used to identify what the team knows and what they don't, which sets a roadmap for future training. Training should support your goal of micro-communication, but not micro-supervision.

Unique Training requirements for Offshore Teams

Not only the technical skill: Some offshore team might have been gathered for their technical skill alone. But ike the domestic team, they need training in domain knowledge, testing/QA knowledge and methods and of course, your testing process ie structure, expectations, communication and documentation. And these are the obvious subjects; but there are many other which are not as obvious but crucial.

Provides confidence: Building the confidence is not a major training consideration for domestic teams. It is for offshore teams. Training gives you more confidence that work is getting executed the way you intended as well and gives the offshore team more confidence they are doing what you want! Training needs to setup channels for open and fluid communication. And they are essential.

Perfect test: Outsourced growth has fame, outsourced testing has another name. In many countries testing is considered throw away work. The training need to include topics on why you test and the value of testing. Developers learn how to develop code at university. The best thing without training is requirements confirmation.

Instructor-led training

Local testers learn from each other and other project team members through yelling over a cubical wall, conversations overheard or at team meetings, and coffee machine chats--in other words "learning by osmosis." It took years of learning to build up this level of knowledge. There is "tribal knowledge" among team members about every facet of the product and project from how and why rarely used features work, to well-known bugs, or where certain test files live on some server. You cannot rely on this method of knowledge transfer for your offshore team. For a while, training needs to be centered on in-class, instructor-led training backed up by computer-based training. And that training is worth.

Up-to-date area knowledge

Many companies today are looking to hire business graduates into technology groups who will have more customer focus. This may also help cut down on technical staff turnover but will increase your training in technical areas. Domain knowledge has proved to be the critical element for outsourced project success.

Conclusion

You have a higher level of programming skill in your offshore team than in the domestic team. It makes sense to first send test automation offshore and keep user-focused scenario development and business process testing in your domestic office where you have more knowledge of the domain and the user. The type of testing that will be done by the offshore team directly impacts the training they will need.