Open Information and Computer Integrated Technologies

The article is devoted to the problem of improving the efficiency of the testing process in the development of software projects within an Agile environment of outsourcing IT companies. The relevance of the study is determined by the current conditions of the IT services market and the strict requirements for the competitiveness of outsourcing companies. The object of the research is quality assurance processes of software projects implemented in the Agile environment of outsourcing companies. At present, Agile methodology and flexible frameworks (Scrum, Kanban, Lean, etc.) constitute a natural environment for the development of outsourcing software projects, and issues related to organizing production processes for projects of various domains (startups, SaaS, financial technologies, telemedicine, logistics, etc.) are well studied and supported by mature tooling (Jira, Azure, and others). At the same time, practical experience and retrospective studies indicate the presence of systemic trigger factors that lead to a significant decline in team performance, which is generally interpreted as the existence of specific problems typical for projects with distributed teams and non-core customers. Therefore, ensuring the efficiency of development processes in this context remains an open issue. The subject of the study is the problems that arise during the testing process in outsourcing software projects and the methods for addressing them. The purpose of the study is, based on the analysis of practical experience, to identify and formulate specific testing problems in outsourcing projects developed for non-core customers that may cause a decrease in team efficiency, and, using established practices, to develop recommendations to eliminate or reduce the impact of these problems. To achieve this purpose, the study identified and systematized the main testing process issues, analyzed and classified the causes of their occurrence according to their significance, and proposed recommendations for their resolution. The results obtained indicate that, within a qualitative study based on the systematization of outsourcing company experience and analysis of typical scenarios, key problems faced by testing teams were identified, including insufficient tester involvement at early development stages, difficulties in communication and requirements elicitation, challenges in assessing feature readiness, test documentation maintenance, defect management, limited time and resources for testing, automation difficulties, regression testing scope, acceptance testing and reporting, shaping realistic customer expectations, knowledge transfer, and team motivation. The proposed recommendations include the active adoption of the Shift-Left approach and collaborative requirements definition, the establishment of transparent and structured stakeholder–developer communication, the development of flexible yet clear Definition of Done criteria and iterative acceptance testing processes, as well as the application of adaptive approaches to test documentation and automation. The recommendations also aim to improve defect management processes, test cycle planning efficiency, regression test automation, the development of an adaptive system of quality metrics and reporting, proactive management of customer expectations, and systematic knowledge sharing within teams.

Agile, outsourcing, software project management, testing, quality assurance (QA), Shift-Left, Definition of Done (DoD)

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