Shah et al. examined large software projects with teams using a global software engineering process. They studied three software testing teams, ranging in size from three to 40 people, that worked in this environment. Client locations were the UK and the US.

An ethnographic approach was used to study the global software testing (GST) environment; the study focused on the deadline-pressure situation that typically arises within GST. Four methods were used to gather data: 29 interviews, conducted with the participants; informal conversations during lunch breaks and post-lunch walks; occasional observation sessions; and attendance at a team’s group meeting.

The authors debunked the commonly held belief that software testing jobs are less preferable than other software development positions. They found that the software testers viewed their jobs as playing an important role, and that they perceived themselves as representatives of the clients (or prospective users of a software product). The software testers had an expectation that the quality of the product would be high, and that they had the “power to make decisions about approving or rejecting a product.”

The software testers reported that they must provide high-quality testing under strict time deadlines. The time deadlines can be a contentious issue because the software testers work toward the end of a project and just before a deadline. If a problem occurs during the development phase of a project, the software testers may find that they have a shorter amount of time for testing than originally allocated during the project design. In order to meet strict deadlines for a project, the software testers developed some innovative strategies to improve their testing (if this was allowed by the client).

As noted by the authors, software testers can experience unproductive productivity, which is a situation where the “test engineers are productive because they produce results that the clients requested, despite their belief that they are being unproductive in producing those results.”

Shah et al. realize that their study was too limited in scope; they plan to address these limitations in future work. They explain that studies like the one they conducted “will enhance the general understanding of the current practice of global software testing so that improvements can be implemented to enhance the practice.”