A company might consider software outsourcing a website's testing for several
reasons...
 
1. The company may be launching a new site, or a new version of their site, and may feel that most testing tasks can be relegated to offshore provider.
2. The company may not have the resources -- people, skills, software, hardware or time - to perform testing.
3. The project to be tested may be of such as short life span that the company doesn't need any long-term investment in testing processes.
4. The company might want an independent third party to perform the testing, in order to get a more objective view of site quality.
5. The company may even be outsourcing the development and coding for the site, making the outsourcing of the testing a reasonable decision. (Even more reasonable would be a firm that provides the coding and the quality control for its own code.)

The decision to outsource testing needs to be a well-considered decision, because most people who aren't responsible for the testing misunderstand the meanings and scopes of the concepts involved in testing. Two very important issues must be resolved before taking the outsource step: first, the company that owns the website must be absolutely clear about the scope of the job -- including the tasks, processes, and responsibilities -- that they want to hire out; and second, the company must be sure that they are speaking the same "language" as the test firm they will hire.

This is the basic language I use in many projects to explain how different databases are deployed to the user. It usually works well coming out of conversations with clients who are throwing database names at me and asking for instant comparisons between them. This frame has helped many of my clients to focus a bit on the type of solution they are looking for and to avoid blindly comparing available options.

Deploying Databases

There are essentially three categories of databases:

<<Client Name>>

Technical Support Contacts

 

Services

General Technical Support

Provider:
Phone:
Email:
Web:
Support provided:

Backup General Technical Support

OUR BEST PRACTICES & QUESTIONS TO EXPLORE

In vendor/consultant relationships

This list represents an initial attempt by the attendees of the Vendor/Consultant Relationship session at the Nonprofit Technology Conference in Chicago (2005) to identify best practices. 

• Define what “doneâ€? is before you get started
• Identify where you are in a system implementation cycle
• Identify clear expectations of the team members in each cycle
• Who are the stakeholders and why are they participating?
• Identify who the inside leader is
• Establish clear, regular, frequent communication between parties/teams
• Be clear of the consultants role in the project
• Avoid always “rescuingâ€? the client?
• Expose the client (appropriate education) to processes of selection & implementation.
  

The Service

To provide clients with a set of resources and easy-to-follow methodology for selecting database tools or vendor services.  Vendor selection is the process of determining the best tool(s) to most closely meet an agency’s information management requirements

The Need

There are two core needs:

1. Nearly all Database planning clients begin and end the planning process with a series of questions related to database design budgets and timelines, software packages, consultants, rates and other issues related to system implementation. 
2. Vendor selection is a resource that serves as the bridge between planning and implementation.  It is the first step for toward developing a database implementation practice, as it provides a methodology for successfully managing database implementation projects.

Who is the Vendor Selection service designed to help?

How does the vendor communicate?

CompuMentor's "Working with Technical Volunteers: A Manual for Nonprofit Organizations" is designed to help organizations and schools:

* assess how a technical volunteer can help
* write up a job description for a technical volunteer

* best manage the project and document the work that they do

Download Here

NTC Session - 3:30-5PM March 24th

Why Discuss the Vendor Consultant Relationship?

Trends in technologies have seen a much greater variety of systems useful for nonprofits provided by vendors. The growth of ASP software is a key example. ASP vendors have brought a tremendous variety of systems that no longer require local installation and as intensive local IT support. Support, maintenance, and documentation/training relies in a much greater way on the vendor supplying the system, and on a strong quality partnership between the vendor and the client.

Discovering and evaluating these new vendor offerings is often very difficult for nonprofit clients, who often seek consultants to help. Rather than evaluating client needs and developing a custom solution, consultants are increasingly working with vendors to evaluate product offerings and providing analysis, recommendations, implementation, training and support services to clients.