QualityWorks Consulting Group

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there. 

I’m head of product for a health and wellness company in California.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with QualityWorks Consulting Group? 

We didn't have an internal QA team, so we needed to hire an external resource to serve that need.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement? 

We have a product that we designed and built. QualityWorks Consulting Group assisted us with product enhancements through QA testing, both manual as well as automated test scripts. 

What is the team composition? 

We've worked with perhaps five individuals over the course of the relationship. I mainly work with the engineers on a day-to-day basis. Occasionally I work with the account manager or project manager. 

How did you come to work with QualityWorks Consulting Group?

They had been working together for some years prior to my joining the company. There was an existing relationship with Stacy (CEO, QualityWorks Consulting Group). I continued working with them because I realized right away that it was a quality relationship.

How much have you invested with them?

I’d estimate we spend between $12,000–$20,000 per year. 

What is the status of this engagement? 

I’m not exactly sure when the project began. I’d guess it was 4–5 years ago, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

In terms of manual testing, they score 100% in providing the level of service that we need. Concerning automated tests, they're about 80% complaint in terms of automation. That's a pretty high bar that they’re able to reach. Trying to achieve that other 20% is always ongoing. The complexity of the system significantly increases as we try and get closer to 100%. We're comfortable now at the 80% rate with the understanding that it's always evolving. 

How did QualityWorks Consulting Group perform from a project management standpoint? 

The QualityWorks Consulting Group team performs quite well. They do a fantastic job at project management. They’re always available, always running tests, and always providing feedback. The limited number of bugs they found in our software as a result of QA is absolutely amazing. Their focus allows them to get into the details more than I’m able to, and that helps us quite a bit. 

What did you find most impressive about them? 

Stacy is an amazing person to work with. She’s personable, professional, and focused on ensuring a quality team. Their team is outstanding at continually learning. They have a directive for the team to seek out knowledge to enhance their skills and abilities. The members of the team rotates in and out on a year-to-year basis. That speaks to the fact that Stacy cares about her employees and making sure that they're continuing to grow. I respect that philosophy because it enhances their ability to actually do the job. 

Are there any areas they could improve? 

Not really. Better advance notification of staff holidays would be appreciated. Having a calendar of events would also help us in our planning. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers? 

I like their overall model and their focus on employees. They should continue on the path of giving them excellent opportunities to learn to grow and keep moving in that same direction.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the founder and CEO of a music technology app. We equalize the music industry by giving all artists a fair chance of being discovered and allowing music lovers to select the next hot artist. We’ve reimagined music promotion and live events, connecting artists with music lovers everywhere.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with QualityWorks Consulting Group?

We were releasing an MVP version of our app and wanted an independent QA firm to test the app.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

A separate company developed our MVP, so we hired QualityWorks Consulting Group to do QA testing. It’s an app for the web, iOS, and Android. QualityWorks Consulting Group defined our overall test strategies, created agile test cases, and executed API, web, and mobile tests. They also did device-specific testing on the top 10 Android and iOS devices. They then reported and validated defects.

What is the team composition?

They have a senior QA consultant.

How did you come to work with QualityWorks Consulting Group?

I interviewed various dev firms and realized I wanted an independent QA team that was experienced with mobile app testing. After looking into many agencies, QualityWorks Consulting Group was the most comforting and affordable, and I was highly impressed by their president, approach, and interest in our project, so I hired them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent over $200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We partnered in October 2017, and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

The releases have been stable and high quality. QualityWorks Consulting Group promptly identified any major issues.

How did QualityWorks Consulting Group perform from a project management standpoint?

The dev team manages them, but they’ve delivered high-quality work throughout the engagement.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have effective communication and are dedicated to our goals and vision. Even though they’re offshore, they’re responsive and flexible to our needs.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. The experience has been great, and I plan to keep working with them.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Whatever they pitch you, believe that they’ll be able to deliver.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m president of a software development firm. We do custom and boutique software development through in-house R&D as well as for third-party clients that want help to implement their ideas.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with QualityWorks Consulting Group?

We have in-house QA but had a particular project for which we needed additional QA support to be able to ramp up very quickly.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

QualityWorks Consulting Group provided us with additional members for our QA team for an Android product. They assisted with QA to test the viability of the product. They also did some R&D by listing the performance characteristics of various devices so that we could know ahead of time how to tune the app for any particular device.

How did you come to work with QualityWorks Consulting Group?

We were in a shared office space, and they did a presentation on QA in the office some years back. That's how we became familiar with them. We took their card. They have a large team, so they were able to jump right in.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from April–September 2017.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

As a quality assurance agency, we rely on them to work through a project until there's no major defect. We could trust that they were doing what needed to be done.

How did QualityWorks Consulting Group perform from a project management standpoint?

We used Jira for tracking and had meetings with them locally. We worked iteratively with feedback loops on two-week sprints marked by small milestones, working to eliminate all bugs.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They're both onshore and offshore, which was convenient for us. We do a lot of offshore, but one of the distinguishing factors for us was that their offshore team is still within this hemisphere, which reduces time zone differences. Their steering team is here in Los Angeles which makes things easier. Their offshore team also speaks English as a first language which is helpful.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There's nothing to improve from my perspective.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Upfront planning ahead of time is important, making sure that they can hit the ground running with the project. In particular, it’s imperative to determine the division of labor between them and your in-house QA so that everyone is clear about the tasks they’ll handle.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the Director of QA at Legacy.com. We’re an online media company that partners with a large number of newspapers globally.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire QualityWorks Consulting Group?

Our company needed help with writing automated QA tests, as well as manual testing

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to increase our automation coverage by a significant amount, and maximize the output of our expanded scrum team.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We’ve used QualityWorks in the past to get us off the ground with QA automation on Node.js, using Nightwatch. Since then, we’ve been pleased with their work and continue to reach out to them when needed.

Describe the project in detail.

The project is an ongoing effort to add more automation coverage to our suite of tests using Nightwatch on Node.js, as well as to add more QA resources to one particular scrum team that staffed up on developers.

What was the team composition?

The team has about six developers, one project organizer, and the two QA resources.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Automation coverage has increased significantly, and QA can now handle the additional workload coming from the development team.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Communication with QualityWorks is easy, and they’re always engaged with the project at hand. They ask questions when they need information, and always reach out in order to move forward when they get blocked by anything. Workflow between our office and theirs is very smooth.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I've been impressed by QualityWorks' ability to respond to our needs quickly, and the professionalism of their staff. We've worked directly with a handful of different people from their company for varying needs (from getting us off the ground in the automation space, to augmenting manual testing), and they have fit in easily. They’re sharp, polite, professional, and happy to help. I greatly appreciate how they offer their own ideas but also understand if we can’t do what they’re suggesting - it’s a great balance to have.

Are there any areas for improvement?

It's easy to always want more work to get done faster, but I've been pleased with the quantity and quality of the work given us in a short period of time. The knowledge ramp-up necessary for new people at our company is significant, and the QualityWorks employees have caught on rather quickly.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work for an online ticketing company. I am the information security officer. Before this, I ran quality assurance for the company, which is where much of our work with QualityWorks came in. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with QualityWorks?

Our initial project was for a separate website, which needed some serious QA [quality assurance] coverage. There was a fair amount of custom functionality on the site and we needed to ensure that everything would work properly. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

QualityWorks collaborated with our own development teams, testing our code and monitoring the whole site from a QA perspective. QualityWorks has helped automate a lot of the manual testing done in my company for a long time, getting a good system in place. We've worked with up to 4–5 testers from QualityWorks at a single point.

How did you come to work with QualityWorks?

We went through a vetting process and interviewed different companies, but I don't remember the particulars. We assessed them from a knowledge standpoint on testing in general, good practices and automation ability. I had also worked with QualityWorks previously.

How much have you invested with QualityWorks?

I don't have this information. I haven't handled invoicing for the past few years.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with QualityWorks for around 4-years, on several different projects. They continued to collaborate with the company for around a year and a half after I no longer oversaw the quality assurance department.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

QualityWorks was very efficient, and we always heard good feedback from the teams that collaborated with them. When we were first looking to automate our processes, there was no question in letting QualityWorks take the lead. Everyone trusted the quality of work provided by them. They were able to come in and assess our code, begin testing, and even make key recommendations about what we could do to improve our processes. 

How did QualityWorks perform from a project management standpoint?

QualityWorks was very cost-effective for us, hitting dates and staying on schedule. We switched between a few different tools, including Mingle and Jira.

What did you find most impressive about QualityWorks?

The one thing that comes to mind is trust in QualityWorks' ability to handle the work. We felt the same level of confidence in them as we had with our internal teams, and knew that high expectations would be met. QualityWorks could take any project we gave them, and make it successful.

Are there any areas QualityWorks could improve?

Nothing comes to mind. Within the latter part of our collaboration, I switched to a different department, but the fact that QualityWorks was kept on for as long as they were, says a lot. The internal practice is to replace groups which don't meet our standards.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We're an Internet-based company in Southern California, providing a points-earning platform to consumers. We provide a multichannel website featuring shopping, surveys, and video content, allowing users to earn points in a variety of ways, even by simply searching the web. I am a senior director of product management. I lead the shopping and discovery channels for the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with QualityWorks?

We needed to move toward a more mature phase in terms of QA [quality assurance] processes. We were looking for a company that had automated capabilities because the manual aspect of our own process was the main shortcoming. It didn't lend itself to scalability and gaining efficiency in code management. We needed to maintain the basic functionalities of our site while we continued to add features.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

QualityWorks has been assisting us in terms of testing a particular ad delivery platform, which was built in-house. QualityWorks has provided testing automation that our company was not able to implement. We have experience with manual testing but not testing automation.

We worked with an overall project manager from QualityWorks, who interfaced with our internal business stakeholders and our CTO. I believe that we had a 2–3 member team from QualityWorks, and we mainly interfaced with our project lead.

How did you come to work with QualityWorks?

I was not involved in this process, but I know that QualityWorks was found by our previous product manager, who had contacts in the industry.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with QualityWorks in the fall of 2015. Our original plan was to launch the platform in March 2016. Our priorities have changed, but we're still engaged with QualityWorks, even though that platform isn't our top priority at the moment. QualityWorks is still working with us in order to make sure that the in-house tool built by us is being tested. It's an important part of our fleet of technology.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

The general impact of QualityWorks's services has been positive. They've implemented automation and communicated well through periodic updates. We've had a regular feedback loop. We were looking for a QA technology company that would be able to implement automation, and QualityWorks did that.

How did QualityWorks perform from a project management standpoint?

I can't comment on the budget, but I never had the sense that we went over it. QualityWorks was able to address anything that we asked for promptly. Any delays due to unexpected circumstances were communicated to us ahead of time. I was very happy with QualityWorks's project management. We used JIRA in order to track issues and bugs, as well as Google Hangouts in order to meet with QualityWorks. We also used other Google tools like Docs and Sheets.

What did you find most impressive about QualityWorks?

It may not be unique, but I found QualityWorks to be capable and easy to work with. They provided good value to our internal team through leadership, communication, project management, and superior capabilities. The people from QualityWorks with whom I interfaced were a pleasure to work with.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We're a development company specializing in Node.js. We develop and implement custom solutions for our clients' needs. I am an executive architect for the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with QualityWorks Consulting Group?

Through an executive engagement, we had a requirement for a QA [quality assurance] analyst, which wasn't a resource that we had in-house. As a software company, quality assurance is a vital element to successful delivery. We had some very challenging work coming in and we needed some expert support to help us ensure a consistent level of quality across the board. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

QualityWorks was brought in for a specific project. We were developing a back-end API [application programming interface] for a customer who wanted to have automated tests running against the developed work, for which QualityWorks provided 4 testing resources. We interacted with them directly on a day-to-day basis as well as through a project lead. 

How did you come to work with QualityWorks Consulting Group?

Our CTO [chief technical officer] had worked with QualityWorks previously, so he reached out to them when we had the need for QA resources. We also tried building an in-house team, but it didn't work.

How much have you invested with QualityWorks Consulting Group?

We've spent around $100,000 for QualityWorks's services.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project had a 6-month duration and was finalized in June 2016.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

QualityWorks was able to implement a full suite of automated tests across all APIs developed by us. The tests were based on internal customer metrics, and QualityWorks ensured that there was adequate test coverage, overall.

How did QualityWorks Consulting Group perform from a project management standpoint?

QualityWorks delivered on time and budget. We used JIRA for tracking our project.

What did you find most impressive about QualityWorks Consulting Group?

QualityWorks has a good understanding of test practices, industry standard tools, and manual coding. Testers were able to re-code and understand how to best test each element.

Are there any areas QualityWorks Consulting Group could improve?

Nothing comes to mind.

What tips or recommendations could you share that might increase the likelihood of success with QualityWorks Consulting Group

Ours was a quite technical project, and QualityWorks was able to understand it quickly. I'd recommend them to other people in the same situation.