MANAGING OFFSHORE OUTSOURCING OF SOFTWARE TESTING Workshop on

MANAGING OFFSHORE OUTSOURCING OF SOFTWARE TESTING Workshop on Advances and Innovations in Systems Testing May 7 -8, 2007 ROBIN POSTON, JUDITH SIMON, RADHIKA JAIN 1

What has been achieved 1. Review of related literature 2. Determination of appropriate research methodology 3. Data gathering through interviews 4. Data analysis 5. Development of plans for next phase 2

Job Descriptions of Interviewees Title Responsibility Number Interviewed Managed Resource Services Manager Oversight and coordination of all the managed resource services. 1 Principal Serves as lead liaison in evaluating business requirements against deliverables to ensure continual utilization of current best practices in software development quality assurance practices. Keeps current on industry quality assurance standards and practices. Works effectively in a strong customer service/team oriented environment to understand application flow and associated technical architecture components and dependencies. Mentors less senior staff. Reports directly to an IT officer. 1 Test Managing Director Oversees testing managers. 1 Test Manager and IT Manager Oversees staff consisting of full-time employees and vendors. Responsible for overall test planning, test design, and project management for major corporate projects across multiple workgroups. Team consists of Test Designer/Lead positions in support of large projects that could impact multiple operating companies. The job involves representing testing in teams composed of business and IT representatives; working with various test teams; creating test design deliverables (test plan, test scenarios, test cases, test data, etc. ) for the projects and leading the testing efforts during the development lifecycle. 4 and 2 Test Lead Under limited supervision, collaborates with other IT teams, architects, and business partners to help evaluate current best practices in software development quality assurance practices. Successfully influences test development through technical guidance and direction setting. Provides leadership for the testing solutions used in delivering world-class technologies and products. Analyzes and resolves problems of high complexity. 1 Offshore Vendor Delivery Manager Project manager for the testing engagement of on-site testing resources and deliverables. 1 Offshore Vendor Test Lead Management of test planning and analysis, test design, test execution, status reporting. 1 Development Manager Oversees staff consisting of full-time employees and vendors. Responsible for overall development management of major corporate projects across multiple workgroups. 2 Total Interviewed: 14 3

Interim results Major Themes Client macro level 1. Contracting with vendors 2. Offshoring strategy and cost-benefit Client micro level 3. Expectations of vendor performance 4. Management of vendors 5. Offshoring issues with vendor 6. Technology infrastructure issues At vendor 7. Management within vendor company 8. Vendor provides a level of services Testing Activities 9. Testing work issues 10. What testing work to send offshore Frequency—Number of Instances[1] 144 45 # of Subcategories 12 9 35 274 159 3 20 13 [2] 58 122 5 15 111 134 13 14 Frequency—Number of Instances reflects the number of times the topic was discussed by interviewees. Due to the semi-structured format of the interview protocols, these frequencies do not reflect a weight of the issues but do reflect the number of times a topic was discussed. 4 [1] [2] Counts—are contained within 4. Management of vendors.

Findings (1 of 2) • • Need for transparency in contracts – Limited visibility of efforts spent by the vendors difficulties in project planning Need for disseminating best practices used in developing statement of work (SOW) – Diverse practices in how SOW are developed diversity in • managing offshore vendors diversity in experiences/ perceptions in working with vendors – For example, inclusion of clauses for status monitoring and problem escalation on a regular basis Addressing challenges in technological infrastructure setup 5

Findings (2 of 2) • Communication with vendor and nature of work being offshored – Length of the vendor relationship influences communications – Increasing face-to-face interaction esp. when systems being tested are distributed and have complex interdependencies • Management of span of control with the offshore vendor employees – Increasing vendor work more overhead costs in monitoring and controlling the work – Challenges with communicating changes that take place in the working environment • Clarifying expectations on vendor innovativeness – Cultural factors 6

Next plan of action • Validation of interview findings: – Further analysis of interview results leading to an updated model of best practices – Development and administration of a survey for managers at other organizations to validate and update the model of best practices – Development of reports and academic publications 7

Updated research model Task Software testing activities Macro/micro vendor management Vendor Critical business knowledge H 1 H 2 H 3 Vendor services/ management H 4 Offshore culture, values, practices H 6 Management of offshore vendors H 5 Offshore Remote management/ infrastructure issues 8