A test strategy for each product
Which risks matter, which tests guard them and at which layer, and how much regression each kind of release needs. Written down, agreed with you, and revised when the product changes rather than filed after kickoff.
Managed QA Services
Quality needs an owner, not a few borrowed testers in the week before a release. We run QA as an ongoing function for your product or portfolio: strategy, people, process and reporting.
Testing happens, but nobody owns it. Each team checks its own work in its own way, people from support help out when a deadline gets close, and the go/no-go call goes to whoever sounds most confident in the meeting. Defects that reach users get fixed, yet nobody asks which stage should have caught them. None of this is negligence. It’s what happens when quality is everyone’s job and nobody’s role, and one more tester won’t change it.
Ownership is written into the agreement
A managed QA agreement states what we are accountable for: which products and releases are in scope, what each kind of release gets before we call it tested, how soon a build is picked up once it’s ready, and what reporting you receive. Those commitments are measured and reviewed as the product changes, so neither side has to guess what is covered.
What stays with you matters as much. You set priorities, accept or reject risk, and make the release call; we give you the evidence to make it. The trade-off is time. A managed function has to learn your product, and the first releases take more of your team’s attention than later ones will. What we learn is written down, so it stays when people change.
What the function covers
Four parts, one accountable team
Day to day, the work is automation, release testing and process testing. What makes it managed is that one team answers for all of it, release after release.
Testers who learn your domain
Named testers and automation engineers who learn your products and the business rules behind them. What they learn goes into written test strategies and notes in your tools, so knowledge doesn’t depend on one person’s memory.
Inside your delivery cycle
Testers join backlog refinement, so acceptance criteria are testable before code is written. Defects go into your tracker, in your format, with steps another person can reproduce.
Reporting you can act on
Each release: what was tested, on which build, and who accepted what is still open. At an agreed interval: defect trends, what escaped to production, which stage should have caught it, and what changes as a result.
Who decides what
| Decision | Our part | Your part |
|---|---|---|
| What a release is tested for | Propose scope based on risk | Agree scope and accept the gaps |
| Whether a release ships | Report evidence and a recommendation | Make the go/no-go call |
| How serious a defect is | Reproduce, triage and classify severity | Set priority against the roadmap |
| How the team is staffed | Staff it to the agreed scope | Approve changes to size or scope |
| Who owns the test assets | Maintain them in your tools | You do, during and after |
Starting a managed function
How we take over QA
The order is the same when QA starts from nothing and when a team has been doing its best without a mandate. Each phase ends with something you can review before the next one starts.
- 01Phase 1
Learn the product and its history
We read the product, its release history and recent production defects, and sit with whoever tests today. You receive an assessment of where quality is being lost and which products carry the most risk.
- 02Phase 2
Write the strategy and the agreement
Test strategy per product, team shape, tools, entry and exit criteria for a release, and the service levels we will be held to. All of it is written down for you to challenge before anything is signed.
- 03Phase 3
Run alongside the current setup
We test real releases next to the existing arrangement, so gaps show up while the people who know the product are still watching. You can compare our defect reports and release evidence with what you had before.
- 04Phase 4
Operate under the agreement
We own testing for the agreed scope, release by release. Each release ends with an evidence pack, and regular reviews, at an interval set in the agreement, are where scope, staffing and priorities can change.
- 05Phase 5
Keep the exit ready
Strategy, test cases, automation code and reports live in your repositories and tools from the start. If you bring QA in-house or move it to another supplier, the next team starts from what you already hold, not from an extraction.
Questions to settle first
The accountability sits somewhere else. When you hire testers through a supplier, you direct them and you own the outcome. Under a managed QA agreement, we own the strategy, the staffing and the results for the agreed scope, measured against service levels in the contract, while you still decide what ships. If you’d rather direct testers yourself, that is the simpler and cheaper arrangement.
Not sure which one you need?
Describe the problem in a paragraph and we will tell you which service applies.