hughk's Journal: QA isn't important, is it?

Yes, our very own offshored/outsourced project is busy going through the motions of dying. It should be noted, that this is not an instantaneous change of state, rather something long, drawn-out and rather painful to watch.

So due to the extended delay before anything can be delivered, the entire external QA team is being 'iced', as there is nothing to test (I'm quoting management here). Actually there is quite a pile still from one of the bits being done onshore, but it is fairly obvious that although the offshore vendor has overrun by over 100%, they have had to cut us back to fund the overspend. After all, QA isn't important is it and they are now far too dependent on the offshore developer to change now.

Of course, the real worry is unless they can show something for all the money already spent (about $14m), the project will get canned. If they can show something (and there is no effective QA to declare it rubbish) then they may be able to fool someone into further funding.

Of course, this could be the strategy, deliver something that doesn't work, use the fact to beat the developer over the head and get the price cut and then fix everything during an extended beta.

Lets just hope that they can find and fix all the bugs. This system looks after serious money.