Working with a rural (onshore) testing team brings a very different experience than working with an offshore staffing agency, and there are many benefits to onshoring your testing work. In this blog, we’ll be talking about two benefits, in particular, the ability of the onshore team to provide better defect prevention and process improvement.

It starts with competence

Beyond education and experience, the competence of a rural testing team includes not only their ability to test but also their; understanding of your core business, ability to resolve issues in a timely fashion, and their ability to effectively communicate with the rest of the team. Much of this is described in a previous blog: Top 10 benefits of using on-shore testers.

Confidence

Along with that competence comes a high level of confidence. That confidence circles around their ability, knowledge, and experience that they bring to the project. Their confidence makes them unafraid to bring to light anything unusual or outside of the testing script. It also empowers them to share ideas that benefit the rest of the testing team or the project team altogether.

Communication

Communication is a potential challenge and always a concern when working with an offshore team, specifically when it comes to language barriers. Communication gaps create a lack of confidence on both sides of the team (onshore and offshore). Those gaps result in additional time and costs to the project or program, and many times this issue is so bad that there may be a front-person that communicates with the project team. Even so, despite having that resource, things may still be lost in translation.

Culture

Given the same level of ability and knowledge, language and cultural barriers may prevent an offshore tester from speaking up. Even an open invitation for candid exchange may still not be enough to get the same open interactions that naturally come from an onshore testing team. That’s because cultural dynamics are a significant contributor to their level and type of cooperation that happen within the group, and having different dynamics at work on the same team many times will cause team growth and improvement to stunt.

Flexibility

An onshore testing QA professional is nimble and can easily change course as the project evolves and alters along the way. They may be the reason for some changes as they identify opportunities to improve the results of the project team. This quality is proven to be beneficial in Agile project environments.

Process Improvement

It doesn’t matter if they are working onsite or remote. When it comes to QA testing professionals and their competence, the expectation must be more than the fallback position that they should just stick to the script. Starting at the very beginning of the project or program, look to your QA professionals for ideas to optimize the team as a means of keeping the overall project or program aligned to its baseline goals. Since they are so ingrained and involved with the product and process, they’ll have many more opportunities to see how everything works together and can be improved.

Lighthouse’s True North Testing Methodology brings customers the most efficient metrics-driven methods to maximize efficiency in all testing efforts and provide highly accurate quotes before beginning an engagement. From test automation to code analysis, our early detection process can save your project or program from realizing unneeded budget costs and delays, whether those costs or delays be from the rework of escaped defects or poorly written or understood requirements.

A level deeper

In the world of software development, we find ourselves in a state of constant improvement. It’s the reason we all exist in this corner of the world. The new software integrations, updates, and upgrades are all examples of continuous improvement, and we play an integral part in it all. We recognize that there will always be something new in the future to improve or replace what we have today.

That said, when it comes to identifying and solving problems, onshore testing professionals shine above the offshore resources when it comes to their ability to understand and address the root cause of problems. The offshore testers can identify defects, but rarely go the extra mile to find the root cause.

For this reason, having a high degree of problem-solving ability means that onshore QA professionals can better offer suggestions to improve the process and prevent additional issues down the line. This kind of professional quality and insight is in abundance with onshore teams but is a rarity offshore. Root cause detection and process improvements pay significant advantages to the budget and timeline of a project. Processes become more streamlined, effective, and efficient as a result.

Speaking of process improvements, in addition to our True North Testing Methodology that we use in our practices at Lighthouse, we can help your in-house teams improve their level of efficiency in your organization with the True North Testing Assessment. Our metrics-driven assessment identifies what your organization does significantly well and where you can realize better results with our recommended improvements.

Lighthouse is the alternative to offshore software testing

These reasons and more are why so many businesses turn to Lighthouse Software Testing and their onshore teams as the high-quality alternative to offshore software testing.  We can augment your existing team to handle increased demand or provide your project with a complete testing solution, freeing your internal team to work on other projects and tasks.

Our proprietary sourcing model (The Gauntlet) enables us to field a team of industry-certified software testing professionals located right here in the US. The Gauntlet not only confirms their knowledge and skills, but also leadership ability, personality, and attitude for the perfect well-rounded candidates.  We accomplish this at the same or lower total cost than you’d pay offshore.  So, when you choose onshoring with Lighthouse, you get a team that collaborates well, attacks problems head-on, and ensures nothing gets lost in translation.

How can Lighthouse bring your team to the next level of performance and efficiency? Let’s start that conversation today!