Winning together with the client

What the talk is about

Ihor Zotov shares practices his QA service company developed over two years of working with clients, drawing on earlier experience in large outsourcing and product companies. First, keep a bench of juniors and interns (10–15% of staff), place them on live projects, and be open with the client about it. The bench covers the bus factor, lowers the average rate, and makes upselling easier. Second, a "local demo": a short informal acceptance check of a feature together with the developer, which catches cosmetic defects on the spot and cuts iterations in the bug tracker. Third, rely on cloud device farms and staff's own devices rather than buying many gadgets, and buy only selected top models. He also advises always reporting quality concerns, auditing the quality of your own tests, and offering automation backed by metrics. Useful for QA leads and managers of service teams.