5 Signs Your QA Is Broken and Needs Advisory Support
Frequent bugs, slow releases, and rising costs? These are the signs your QA needs expert advisory support.
Founder & CTO
- 6 mins read
- 21 Jan, 2026
QA is not just a step in the software development life-cycle, it is the other side of DevOps; it is the backbone of delivering reliable, scalable, and user-friendly applications. Despite this, most companies are caught in broken QA processes that slow delivery and push up costs – all while putting product quality at risk. If your organization is struggling to overcome ongoing testing obstacles, it may be time to bring on a test advisory partner. 10decoders provides strategic QA guidance, supporting businesses to fine-tune their own testing capabilities and produce higher quality software. A QA advisory partner will deliver a strategic perspective with industry best practices to ensure your testing function is robust and efficient.
Here are five clear signs indicating that you’ve reached a point where using a test advisory firm is necessary to correct what may be broken in your current QA processes.
1. Frequent Production Bugs Despite Testing Efforts
You keep finding defects in production is a pretty obvious sign. When your team is spending time and money testing, but bugs are still making it to end-users, it’s a sure sign that something in the QA process is falling short.
The issue with this is usually twofold:
- Inadequate test coverage
- Poorly defined test cases
- Outdated testing tools
- Misalignment between development and QA teams
In such scenarios, a QA advisory partner will test your current testing processes to identify the coverage gaps and provide risk-based testing strategies. By targeting testing where it counts the most, they can help eliminate production defects, increase customer satisfaction and save money on post-launch bug-fixing.
2. Lengthy Release Cycles and Bottlenecks
Slow software releases are also a typical symptom of QA processes that have gone awry. Long feedback cycles, high rework and last-minute defect detection are issues that can postpone the release of a product. If your developers frequently wait on QAs or have to hand off releases, QA isn’t very effective for you.
A test advisory partner can:
- Introduce continuous testing pipelines
- Accelerate testing practices towards Agile and CI/CD paradigms
- Streamline test processes using automation and DevOps practices
By getting rid of these obstacles, companies are able to not only speed up their release cycle but also maintain the same quality level. This means faster time-to-market, so that you can stay ahead in the digital world.
3. High Testing Costs Without Corresponding Quality
QA is an investment, but if your organization is investing in testing with no obvious effect on the quality of software it develops, you might, just might have to start looking at broken processes. Exorbitant expenditures with little or no improvements can result from:
- Redundant manual testing
- Poorly prioritized test cases
- Underutilized automation tools
- Fragmented testing across teams
Measuring your QA spend with a testing advisory partner can help you optimise spend and ensure a risk-based approach to improve efficiency using a right blend of manual and automated testing. This means that every dollar spent on QA leads to better quality, less defects and higher ROI for your business.
4. Lack of QA Strategy and Standardization
Without a clear strategy or misaligned processes between teams, organizations usually face hiccups in QA. This can lead to irregular test procedures, uneven testing coverage and challenges with performance tracking. Without a standardized QA process, it is hard to scale up testing or add new technologies.
A test advisory partner brings:
- A clear QA strategy that supports business goals
- Standardized test processes and templates
- Counterbalancing measures & KPIs for gauging testing efficiency
- Recommendations on the incorporation of best practices from top sectors
With a standardized approach, the quality team is more predictable, measurable and effective in driving some long-term product quality, operational efficiency.
5. Difficulty Adapting to Emerging Technologies
Software is evolving rapidly as AI, machine learning, cloud-native and micro-services architectures embrace the technological envelope. Organizations with stagnant QA processes invariably struggle to keep pace with the newest developments.
Challenges can include:
- Lack of experience in testing new technologies
- Inability to automate a complex environment
- Poorly integrated QA inside the DevOps pipelines
- Issues with scaling testing for cloud or distributed systems
A test advisory partner can help mitigate these gaps by providing the required knowledge, introducing the latest tools and techniques in testing. They make your tests future-proof, robust and ready for technology changes.
How a Test Advisory Partner Transforms QA
Hiring a test advisory partner is more than fixing things that are wrong—it’s about turning Quality Assurance into an asset. Here’s what they can do to make a difference:
Process Assessment and Optimization
Advisory partners perform a comprehensive assessment of current QA processes, tools and teams. They pinpoint inefficiencies and deliver concrete suggestions for increased efficiency.
Automation Strategy
They identify opportunities for automation, and develop frameworks that ease manual effort and speeds up testing to increase coverage.
Training and Knowledge Transfer
Advisory Partners coach the internal QA teams on best practices, about new tools and also how to really approach testing in a modern way, so you can drive and sustain over the long term.
Metrics and Reporting
They create KPIs and reporting systems to gauge QA efficiency, while guiding with ongoing improvement.
Risk Mitigation
Through risk-based testing, advisory partners concentrate on areas where the highest impact is found which means smashing production issues and improving customer satisfaction.
Signs You Should Act Now
Although the five indicators mentioned above signal that it is time to ask for help, taking action now rather than later can save money and increase the customer experience and a company’s business outcomes. Here’s what to consider:
- Are your QA teams overwhelmed or reactive rather than proactive?
- Do you face repeated production issues despite thorough testing?
- Is your release cycle delayed due to QA bottlenecks?
- Are you spending more on testing without seeing quality improvements?
- Are you struggling to adopt new technologies or methodologies?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, it’s time to involve a test advisory partner.
Selecting the Ideal Test Advisory Partners
All advisory partners are not the same. Look for a partner will help you succeed and provide:
- Industry Expertise: Understanding your domain and technology stack
- Proven Methodologies: Worked in Agile, DevOps and risk-based testing
- Automation Proficiency: Should be able to implement scalable and maintainable automation frameworks
- Strategic Advice: Provide a long-term solution and not a short-term fix
- Collaborative Mindset: Works closely with your teams to facilitate knowledge transfer and process adoption
Final Thoughts
A broken QA process can undermine software quality behind the scenes, slowing time to deliver and increasing costs. Keep an eye out for the signs early—issues with frequent production bugs, slow releases, high testing costs, the absence of standard patterns and difficulties adopting new or evolving technology — so you can act before it’s too late.
Partnering with a test advisory partner such as 10decoders brings the expertise, strategy, and modern practices needed to transform QA into a proactive, strategic enabler. By optimizing inefficiency, automating and driving best practice, advisory partners ensure your software will be reliable, scalable and future-ready.
With enterprises seeking to improve product quality, drive faster releases and realize higher efficiency in QA spend, the choice is clear: partnering with a test advisory firm isn’t just an option—it’s strategic.
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