Software Testing Levelled up with Quality House

Software testing is a crucial part of every software development project and omitting or insufficiently testing it could have quite detrimental consequences – ranging from financial and brand losses for the company, through data breaches, to even losing a life, depending on the specifics of the project. Since the start, Quality House was incepted with the idea of popularizing the importance of software testing in Bulgaria and the South East European region. Today the company stand as a successful leader in its field with an incredible story depicting struggles, overcoming motivation and creative ideas. As they share their experience with us today, we are certain to invoke a spark of innovation in every aspiring individual. Overcoming the Challenges Starting a company and raising it up to a level of recognition is easy said than done. The journey especially initially, involves struggles that can be demotivating. However, if you have the passion to succeed despite every struggle, then you create something extraordinary. Similarly, Quality House too had their struggles one of which was, relating to the fact that companies in Bulgaria back then were not as aware of software testing. They relentlessly tried to educate and increase awareness about the importance of software testing, and they did a pretty good job with that. Their clients saw the huge enthusiasm they brought, their dedication to software quality and the improved results due to their services and that was enough to convince them software testing is important. Well, they made every effort to make a market presence and overcome the challenges with innovative ideas and evidently, have succeeded. Quality Services Quality House provides two types of services – software testing and consulting services, where they either supplement an already existing on-site team or form a new one. They manage to bring in a lot of expertise and positive influence on their clients’ projects, as well as a fresh look at a problem or organization, which is also evidenced by the positive feedback they get on their colleagues’ work. They are also an ISTB accredited course provider, the only one in Bulgaria, as well as an accredited provider for CMAP Foundation Level Course and the Certified Professional Requirements Engineering (CPRE) – Foundation Level. The company takes pride in having been able to train more than 3000 software testing professionals in South East Europe and thus, improving the quality and popularity of software testing in the region. They improve software quality and are entirely focused on software testing, with a rich portfolio of accredited testing courses following international standards and practices. Test Management, Web Testing, Test automation consultancy, mobile testing, functional testing, acceptance testing is some of the services provided by Quality House. The CEO Mind Building a leading software company has been the long-time dream of its founder and CEO Mitko Mitev. With more than 25 years of experience in software quality assurance and more than 20 years and Project and Test manager, he is one of the leading software test experts, in South East Europe. Quality House was originally thought of as a software testing training company, but as they started working, they received more and more requests for software testing and consulting services from clients which led to the thought of deciding adding it to the their services which will also be a nice way to not only expand their field of work, but also showcase in practice their expertise in software testing – as in, demonstrate the superb training of their employees. “now we have been on the market for 15 years and it has really changed my life since its beginning. Back then I was just doing software testing projects as a Test Manager or Project Manager for other companies, but I took the decision to focus on my own creation’ and help with business development and growth”, shares Mitko. Leaving security and venturing into the unknown, when you don’t even know if it will work out, is always scary, but also brave. Hence, Mitko is happy with the decision he took and how things worked out with Quality House since then. It has enabled him to fulfil his dream of what direction of software testing he wanted to choose and popularize this field of work and educate people in the South East European region about it. The Motivating Mantra The industry is demanding and huge as compared to what it uses to be a few years ago, and Quality House has lived every phase in these 15 years. They have witnessed high demand for consulting services related to creating the whole automation process. What keeps the team motivated is their will to keep exploring and creating something innovative and new in the market. They are also looking at increased demand for non-functional parts of software testing, such as performance and security testing, especially with the increased concerns worldwide regarding data breaches and hackings. GDPR in Europe made keeping clients data safe even more crucial and they see more companies taking great interest in that aspect of their products. The DevOps transformation of teams is also an interesting trend that changes software developing teams and the traditional role of the tester as well. Dreams change as you learn new things every day as it did for Mitko. His dream today is not the same as he had 15 years ago. Reminiscing his days as a young manager, Mitko cites an important life lesson he learnt from the people he worked with him that stayed with him as an inspiration. “I was working as a young manager at a company in the Netherlands, when the CEO told me that if I want to be a good manager I have to be able to be objective. That I must be able to talk to people I manage about both their good and bad sides, or times when they’ve done exceptional and times when they didn’t do as well. Being fair like that is beneficial for both a manager and an employee – when it’s done respectful of course.” Mitko learned that no one is perfect which is why constructive criticism exists; it helps you grow personally and professionally, by letting you know areas where you lack and trying to improve on them. He also believes that objective’ is not only about giving criticism, but also giving recognition where it’s due. It costs nothing saying good job on that project’ for instance, but it goes miles for said employee’s morale and enthusiasm. The Journey Awaits Quality House dreams to extend their presence further into Europe. They have already started working on that, with an office in Novi Sad, Serbia. As a part of the whole IT ecosystem in Bulgaria and the South East European region, Quality House is subject to all kinds of factors, apart from those that they themselves can change. As the CEO Mitko wants Quality House to keep growing, offer its services to partners in Europe, and improve their influence in South East Europe and East Europe. “I would like to see more changes like that, more reasons to become even more specialized. It fuels growth and success. So our plans are to grow, not only as a market, but as a service portfolio.” He adds. The company has been adaptable enough to survive even through hard times, which means they have more than enough strength for everything coming their way. You cannot predict the market and changing factors that affect a business growth. However, if you take the right steps skillfully with knowledge, you are sure to get the desired results. If Quality House continues to do everything right, they believe they will do good too and the company will thrive in every changing market for the many years to come.