What If We Started a Testing Consultancy?

In this episode, Russell, Chris, Tara, and David explore what a testing consultancy could look like if you stripped it back and built it around values, experience, and honest reflection.

Starting with some light-hearted conference banter, the conversation quickly turns to consultancy models, what works, what does not, and what they would do differently.

Outcomes over outputs

A recurring theme throughout the discussion is the importance of focusing on outcomes rather than outputs.

The group reflect on:

• Delivering meaningful change, not just activity
• Avoiding long-term dependency on consultants
• Measuring success by what happens after you leave

Enablement and sustainability

Rather than doing the work for clients, the conversation leans towards:

• Setting up repeatable processes
• Enabling teams to continue without support
• Leaving organisations self-sufficient

The idea of making yourself redundant comes up as a sign of success.

Working with context

The discussion explores how consultants engage with existing client environments:

• When to adapt to existing processes
• When to challenge and improve them
• The importance of pragmatic, context-informed decisions

There is no single answer, but a strong emphasis on informed choice and transparency.

Thought leadership vs “bums on seats”

The group question traditional consultancy models, particularly:

• Staff augmentation
• Long-running placements
• Value tied to time rather than impact

Instead, they explore a model centred around:

• Short-term, high-impact engagements
• Strategic and cultural change
• Supporting teams rather than filling roles

Follow-ups, iteration, and lasting change

A key challenge raised is what happens after consultants leave.

The group discuss:

• Returning at later checkpoints
• Supporting incremental change
• Preventing regression to old habits

The idea is less one-off transformation, more ongoing iteration.

Consultancy as connection

An alternative model emerges during the conversation:

• Acting as a connector of people and expertise
• Matching specialists to specific problems
• Leveraging community rather than a fixed bench

Blurring the line between consultancy, partnership, and network.

Who would this be for?

The group gravitate towards:

• Startups and scale-ups
• Organisations open to change
• Teams looking for guidance, not just delivery

With less interest in:

• Large-scale augmentation
• Traditional long-term consultancy models

This episode explores

• What good consultancy looks like in practice
• Outcomes vs outputs in client engagements
• Enablement and making change stick
• Navigating client context and constraints
• Thought leadership vs staff augmentation
• Alternative consultancy models and community-led approaches

Referenced in this episode

Fiona Charles – 10 Commandments for Ethical Testers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQHt4Pao2Vs

#PeersCon27 (March 11th, 2027) is now LIVE Tickets for the event are live for the Early Bird Price of £15 until November 30th 2027.

Transcript

0:10: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Testing Pets. 

 0:14: Today we're gonna talk a little bit about consultancy, ideal consultancy, what's our future view of the world, what do we, would we look for in a consulting? 

 0:23: , we're joined with some of the regular crew and some special guests. 

 0:29: So let's start by introducing our special guest. 

 0:32: So, hello Tara. 

 0:35: Hello, Russell. 

 0:37: Great to have you here today, Tara Walton, and we've got some of our usual crew, so say hello Chris. 

 0:44: Hello Russell. 

 0:45: Yay, and Last but not least. 

 0:49: It's the man with the mic. 

 0:51: David, say hello to our crew. 

 0:54: Hello, Russell. 

 0:56: And that's who we've got today, so so I think Tara has been tasked with our little bit of banter to get the going today. 

 1:06: So Tara, over to you. 

 1:09: OK, this is a very serious question. 

 1:11: I've been thinking about it all day. 

 1:13: What is the strangest thing you've seen a stranger do? 

 1:17: We all go to conferences. 

 1:18: I know you've seen some weird stuff. 

 1:22: Yeah, but I didn't think we were allowed to talk about Utah on it. 

 1:25: Oh, you can talk about me. 

 1:27: I do some strange things. 

 1:29: I walk around San Francisco in a tiara. 

 1:33: So That's not that strange though. 

 1:41: I'm baffled Really? 

 1:45: Oh, I thought that would be fun. 

 1:49: You, you kiss off, Tara. 

 1:50: What, what have you seen? 

 1:51: , I think the, the thing that made me think about it was, one of the first conferences I went to was, agile testing days, and there was someone at the booth, and I wish I could remember his name right now, but I suck at names, spent the whole day in a, donut inflatable while he was talking to somebody, just wearing it around his waist. 

 2:15: I thought my tiara was strange, but the donut pool floaty. 

 2:19: , definitely was a step up. 

 2:22: I loved it. 

 2:23: Just making sure he was secure in case there was a pool party, as you say, just he was on board and ready. 

 2:30: I, you gotta love agile testing days. 

 2:32: Everybody lets loose and brings out their fun. 

 2:36: Indeed, I was gonna say mine's not testing related, but I did where I live there's a guy that must have been in his late 60s, 70s sort of thing. 

 2:46: He wanders around town, including in winter when it's minus temperatures, wearing basically a full basketball kit, which is unusual in the UK to start with, but we're talking like knee length basketball shorts, basketball trainers, we're talking about the vest, and, sort of a cap, and that's what he walks around in and. 

 3:05: It is a bit weird, it does seem like he may have some psychological challenges, shall we say, but, it is a strange thing wandering around Newcastle just seeing a guy in basketball shorts and things. 

 3:18: Looking for a game for want of a better reason. 

 3:21: I love it. 

 3:22: That is commitment to a style. 

 3:24: , he is very committed cos it, I think I saw him in in snow in the same outfit. 

 3:30: And I've never seen him play basketball, which is the disappointing factor. 

 3:33: Cos then it wouldn't be weird, would it, let's be realistic. 

 3:37: Right. 

 3:41: One thing that we're talking about people wandering around villages and stuff, We have a guy who. 

 3:49: Just basically dances. 

 3:51: He dances absolutely everywhere. 

 3:53: And in fact, I've seen him close to work, you know, I think he goes to college close by here, and yeah, he just, Whenever you see him walk, well, he doesn't walk, he dances down the street, he just Is just loving life and Brings a smile to my face every time. 

 4:12: I wish, I wish I was more like him. 

 4:14: Oh, that's awesome. 

 4:16: It is very often the people that don't seem to. 

 4:20: Care what others are thinking that are the most intriguing to watch it, isn't it. 

 4:26: I remember in my, my old house, when I, I used to sit in an upstairs box room at the front of the house so I could, I could observe the street whilst I was working. 

 4:37: And one of the delivery drivers for one of the parcel firms, And was one of those most interesting people to watch because he drove a very small car. 

 4:48: , and he would blare music. 

 4:52: He knew when he was coming because his music was so loud in his car. 

 4:56: And he was so jolly, but also he didn't seem to mind whether he drove on the road, the footpath, the grass. 

 5:05: He just took the path of least resistance for him in his car, forwards or backwards, like he would just go along just in a happy mood with his parcels. 

 5:14: I, I could have watched him for hours, If he was delivering for me, I used to sort of try and run out to greet him because I was a bit concerned about what he might be doing with my parcels cos he would go unlock them and things but yeah, he's a fascinating guy. 

 5:29: So, so it's the moral of the moral of the story here is, embrace your, your strange, I guess I love it. 

 5:39: I think we can all say, all of us on this call, we've all got our quirks. 

 5:43: Definitely, yeah. 

 5:47: shaking I think Chris has got more than most, hasn't he? 

 5:52: you've got them. 

 5:54: I am so normal. 

 5:57: In your own world, yeah. 

 5:59: Normal is, is subjective. 

 6:03: Yes, quite. 

 6:04: Depends on the context. 

 6:07: And that brings us to the context of the podcast. 

 6:10: So we were thinking obviously starting talking about idea consultancy, and I think I'll kick us off. 

 6:19: So. 

 6:20: Me, I think There's two things that kind of stand out, which is obviously a positive cultural environment. 

 6:28: , so to me that's things like probably 4 day weeks these days, flexible working, open to be adaptive to different people with different needs. 

 6:37: You know, no course set hours, that sort of stuff, about outcomes necessarily over exactly how you do it, if you see what I mean. 

 6:44: So that's kind of a key thing for me for a consultancy if I was setting one up myself. 

 6:49: Yes. 

 6:51: Yeah, I, the, the thing that's most, the thing that's most important to me is the last thing you said, which is the outcomes, concentrating on the outcomes rather than the output. 

 7:00: It's, it's a really big thing for me at the moment, and, yeah, making sure that our clients, or whoever, were, were happy in what we did, and that value, value for money, but also, as you say, the workers themselves, flexible working. 

 7:17: , good working environment, catering for. 

 7:25: me and Yeah, I would, like we said, ditto type thing, but yeah, for me, the outcomes are really, really important. 

 7:34: Thought we'll start us off easy, you know, something we might all agree with. 

 7:39: Not like saying, you know, we need to have was it every week appraisals. 

 7:43: That sort of world, no, I thought I'd not stick with that. 

 7:45: Forget, forget 360, let's do 1280 feedback. 

 7:48: I was thinking 365, you know, one every day. 

 7:51: No, let's not do that. 

 7:53: Let's avoid that, as we said, outcomes. 

 7:55: , I see, I would say for me it's not always about the outcome so much as it it's about, Working with my clients has been more about setting up processes that I know that they can reproduce, so that when I am no longer babysitting or hand holding or anything like that, they're set up to continue to succeed, and so laying that groundwork and that foundation that even when everything hits the fan, I know that they have a, a method to follow through and a checklist to go by and expectations to look for, like that's, that's my happy place, so. 

 8:34: I'd expand on that and say it's, it's the idea really, at least in my head, or for me maybe I should say of you make ourselves redundant. 

 8:42: We're in there to do a job, to get out, but to leave. 

 8:46: Wherever we are, whatever we're doing, better off and self sustaining ideally. 

 8:51: obviously if you go in there to write a report, then perhaps the report should be helpful in itself, but in most cases it's going in there with an idea to leave things better than you found them. 

 9:01: That you've left lasting impact, not just written a report ideally, that you actually help instigate change. 

 9:08: Yeah, it's enabling the clients to look after themselves type thing, isn't it? 

 9:12: It's, it's being a, no. 

 9:15: If as a consultant, you have been there for 6 years, then. 

 9:19: You're not really consulting anymore, are you, you're just doing. 

 9:21: Yeah, it's a mark of success though, isn't it, when, when you do something so good they want you to stay, but they don't need you, but they're going to recommend other people to you. 

 9:30: Like I think, I think that that's a really nice goal which without telling you beyond one thing to be able to achieve those sorts of things, that's a really nice. 

 9:39: Thing to aim for. 

 9:40: I was thinking, not, not only would I not want to be interested in sort of exclusively, can be concerned with the staff augmentation and just putting butts on seats. 

 9:51: I would want to be doing things that bring me joy. 

 9:54: And what brings you joy, Chris? 

 9:56: Well, so I like working with people, Russell, I don't know if you knew that, and I, and I, I deeply enjoy, Bringing positive change and doing all those sorts of good things in, but where I find. 

 10:10: Probably a lot of joy is in channeling not only my inner Thomas the Tank Engine in feeling like I'm being a really useful engine, but in getting to the point where I think we're refining our process, we're actually doing something that's different, that's better, and for the right reasons, like, I still sort of come back to Fiona Charles' 10 + 1 commandments for the ethical techie. 

 10:38: And I like the idea of Not having to make decisions purely for financial gain, but doing them for the right reasons with the right people, I like the fact that as Testing peers with our conference, we do things with transparency upfront and, and leading with those bits. 

 10:59: Sure we could be more organized and do all those sorts of things. 

 11:02: I'd like to think that if we were doing this professionally, we would be. 

 11:06: But I think that operating with that level of intent to Be upfront with this is what we want to do, this is why we want to do it, this is how this is important and this is our differentiator, this is, this is our grounding, you know, we work with people that we believe are doing good things and we can help them. 

 11:27: And, and so on and so forth. 

 11:29: That, none of that speaks actually to testing, I should say we're all from testing software development agile backgrounds and probably were we to have our ideal consultancy, that would be an anchor of ours, but folks that we would be collaborating with may well be change agents and product people and DevOps folks. 

 11:49: We do sometimes talk to them, listener. 

 11:52: More than sometimes I think. 

 11:53: To your point, quality, we all talk about it being holistic about the whole team and all these sorts of things. 

 11:58: Going in to change culture, which is often one of the requirements in some consultancy type things. 

 12:04: Obviously augmentation, delivering of projects themselves is another angle for it, but going in to change things is often something you do in connection with other people. 

 12:13: You have to go in and align. 

 12:15: You have to go in and find your allies, in those sorts of roles, don't you? 

 12:19: and to make it. 

 12:21: Well, psychologically safe and all the rest of it, to make people feel they can speak and talk. 

 12:25: , because you're gonna step on toes. 

 12:28: if you're an outsider looking into a company, you're always stepping on somebody's toe, not necessarily deliberately, not maliciously. 

 12:35: It's just toes are on the ground everywhere, so you've got to be careful where you step. 

 12:39: So yeah, I think you know consultancy wise it's about enabling, isn't it? 

 12:43: It's about helping, it's about supporting, it's the right attitude to Chris's point, it's about being transparent. 

 12:49: It's about actually setting out there with a, a nobilistic goal rather than I'm gonna call it corporate bullshit. 

 12:57: you know, you say, you say the wonderful things, but actually that's not the DNA of what you do. 

 13:02: whereas if we were doing something, I hope that actually we can make that the DNA. 

 13:06: That when we say we put the customer first, we actually mean that to our own detriment at times. 

 13:11: You know, if that means we're extra transparent where everyone says you shouldn't be, say your costs when you shouldn't, you know, say how much markup you're making even, if that was what the world needed. 

 13:20: Then I'm all for it because you're paying for our skills, You know, that's the way the world works. 

 13:26: Can I ask a question? 

 13:27: If you are going into a company, you're not being a change agent, so you're not changing things, but you are just producing something, you're extending something that they've done. 

 13:37: Would you enforce your processes on, or try to enforce your processes on the client, or would you use the client's processes to change you? 

 13:46: Interesting question. 

 13:47: I think it depends on how bad their processes are. 

 13:53: Like why is this a product that they're not taking on themselves? 

 13:56: Yeah, If their processes are good, they're assuming that they're, they're quite efficient or whatever. 

 14:02: It depends, isn't it, as we said, In all honesty, you want to give feedback on things that could be improved and all the rest of it, but it to me it comes down to the outcome. 

 14:11: If the outcome was we want you to deliver this so that we can maintain it in the next 6 months, going in and doing something in a completely different process would be. 

 14:17: , a lot of extra work, shall we say, cos you're having to change them onto that new process, new ways of doing everything and so on, and it could well be augmenting what they're doing, but in most cases you kind of, You'd want to go in and make sure that whatever it was their processes were, that you could be a contributor to improving them. 

 14:36: The feedback loops worked and so on, that you weren't just going to be taken as do as I say, full stop. 

 14:41: That wouldn't be a gig I'd want as a consultancy to be involved in. 

 14:44: It may be what pays bottom dollar, don't get me wrong, but I'd want to be enabling them to be more successful, giving them feedback, and I'd want them to want that feedback. 

 14:56: They may not act on it all. 

 14:57: They may not have time. 

 14:58: , but I'd want to do it, not to increase our sales, but actually to get a better outcome for ultimately their customers. 

 15:06: That's the way I'd look at it. 

 15:08: There's a lot of. 

 15:10: Pragmatism required, you know, we've talked a lot about context and so on and so forth. 

 15:15: One of the favorite consultancy interview questions is along the lines of, you're in an early stage with an engagement and you've made your preferred suggestions to the client and they opt to do something completely different, and how would you deal with that. 

 15:35: my take would hopefully be. 

 15:37: That I've provided enough context options, whether that be ROI or time frames or quality, any, any sort of framing that that was appropriate, that if they've made an informed decision and I've given them all the information they've needed. 

 15:53: They've had their eyes open to risks, costs, benefit and stuff, and they've made that decision. 

 16:00: That's cool, that's fine. 

 16:02: I can, I can live with that. 

 16:03: Is that an engagement I want to stay with? 

 16:05: Maybe not. 

 16:06: I mean, I would want, I would like to think we'd be able to step away from ones that wouldn't be going along the right lines, cause you want to be working on things you agree with. 

 16:15: And, and I think there has to be a point where you reframe expectations and outcomes. 

 16:21: You know, given these constraints, we can't meet this criteria, but we can do all these other things. 

 16:29: so I think keeping that level of transparency and expectations and to where they account, I, when I feel accountable, I feel like I've met all the goals that I specifically said I was going to, if I went above and beyond, great. 

 16:41: , but I've been very clear about like this is something that I can't make happen under these constraints. 

 16:49: Yeah, if you were going in the context of kind of, sort of management consultant style or giving high level, thought leadership, that's the consultancy framing, then obviously if they chose not to go with your thought leadership, it would render in my head a continued relationship to be less valuable for both parties. 

 17:09: Doesn't mean it is, it depends which parts of things get where and the why. 

 17:13: If it's cost, for example, it may be love what you were saying, actually you've misunderstood our budgetary type things, we think that's a long term strategy, but we need this help in the short term. 

 17:23: But again, it all depends upon your specialisms within your consultancy and so on. 

 17:27: I must admit from what I know of us as testing peers, we're probably more geared up for the thought leadership side of the world than bums on seats side of the world because. 

 17:37: We're not bums on seats, for want of a better word. 

 17:41: we are talking more thought leadership in a lot of our podcasts. 

 17:43: , we all do have bums, I think. 

 17:45: I, I've played a bum in the seat before, you know, when, when some of those directives come down, you have to go, I'll do what I can with it if that's the role that you've been given, for sure. 

 17:56: Yeah, exactly, but I guess if, if I was setting up a consultancy, I wouldn't, I would be setting up more gear to that thought leadership space, training, supporting, cultural change, technology change, people change, the strategic change. 

 18:09: , to Chris's question really, and so if they wanted to go in a different direction, you'd have to question the value that you could continue to give. 

 18:17: If you could give value, you have a mutual good relationship, you keep doing it. 

 18:21: And it could be that actually they've taken what your ideas are and gone up a notch. 

 18:24: You've actually misunderestimated and sold them something that was a a gateway to a continuous delivery, for example, and they've gone, nope, we want to do a continuous delivery tomorrow. 

 18:33: And you're like, OK, awesome. 

 18:35: That's a big leap, a lot of cultural change there, but happy to help you get there and we can look into different ways of doing it, and support them. 

 18:43: So it, as we say, context, cult, it, it always depends, but I certainly think that it's a hard one, but yeah, if I was creating a testing peers consultancy, testing peers consults, I'd certainly probably be guiding us towards more that strategic leadership, thought leadership, training, supporting people. 

 19:03: World I would also hope that anybody that I worked with, or worked under me, or, you know, collaborated with would also feel comfortable enough to say yes or no, or veto, or what about, and kind of not just be an echo chamber or a yes man in the room, because we all get stuck in our, our blind spots, and I, I want people to be able to, I don't know, feel comfortable enough to call me out when I'm in a blind spot. 

 19:33: As testers, we are often blinded by that in itself, if that makes sense, because we're focused on the testing angle, the quality angle, not the sales angle, not the retention angle, not the, the cost, marketing angles, and so on. 

 19:48: And actually it's in a business sense, it's generally most money decisions come down to the overall picture. 

 19:54: Where can we allocate budget, what's the return on that? 

 19:57: Chris mentioned your ROI. 

 19:58: Those are the factors that play things so. 

 20:01: We have to use our skills to influence, to courage to sell ideas, but to Chris's point, we can't always be successful and changes of priorities happen overnight in businesses that we've all been in companies that change dramatically, switch tomorrow, startup goes from one idea to a different idea entirely. 

 20:21: Sales pitch is a tough gig as well, right, because I know as testers we innately need to. 

 20:27: Be able to sell ideas and sell things to people, but speaking to an audience of folks who have the checkbook in hand is a different ball game. 

 20:37: I read a business plan for a friend of mine, and as I read it, I thought to myself, I know you could do this job. 

 20:44: I know that there is a valid purpose for that job needing to be done for the benefit of C-suites and founders, those sorts of people. 

 20:55: But if I were to wear that hat, there is nothing that tells me that you, mister unknown person, are the person I should be talking to. 

 21:04: There is nothing that tells me that your offering is unique, and why should I talk to you over person blah. 

 21:12: There's nothing that tells me why I even need you beyond just me reading some self-help book or a blog post somewhere. 

 21:20: And that sales pitch that often has to come with the numbers, people, they, they are incredibly important and sometimes I get, and I'm speaking just to myself here. 

 21:32: I get so het up with not seeing the value in so many numbers that I anchor myself out of the conversations about where the numbers are useful, and to certain audiences, that is exactly what they want to hear. 

 21:46: And finding a way to merge the story that I want to be telling with one that they want to listen to. 

 21:53: Is a real tricky, tricky game, and it's what I want to spend a lot of time getting better at. 

 21:59: Or is it the, the part where you say, I can't do this in my ideal consultancy, we hire the perfect person. 

 22:07: I would love to not be the one that has to do all of the things, but I would still want to learn and I would still want to appreciate and grow. 

 22:14: Yeah, well, I wanna learn it, but I am not the financial person, right? 

 22:18: I always think, man, I could do this if I just knew somebody who knew how to like get the venture capital for it, cause I am not that girl. 

 22:26: There is an element that, you know, a testing peers consultancy or that sort of ilk or something we guys we put together might be actually connecting people. 

 22:34: But actually it may be more of a connection service than anything else. 

 22:38: The the right thought leader for the right challenge for the right person. 

 22:41: You know, using our peer network for want of a better word, to actually get the right sort of fit, the right mold of person to add value to the company in question, be it a startup, be it a pharmaceutical company. 

 22:55: These contexts have different needs and actually there's people with experience and so on. 

 23:00: And it's not just like who you have on a bench, who you have in your company, sometimes it's about people that fit the help, the right goal, help the right outcome, cos generally you're helping a company, you're helping the people in the company as well succeed. 

 23:12: You're making their lives easier, that's the goal. 

 23:15: You're helping them get more value, you're helping them get better sales for want of a better word, but you're also helping the people in it hopefully find a happier place, hopefully more successful place and you know, no developer wants bugs. 

 23:29: No tester wants to see bugs, no product manager wants to see horrible bugs. 

 23:33: All these sorts of things, so all these things we're actually trying to connect people together to help improve something, cos if there's not an improvement, there's generally no value in being paid, if you see what I mean, so. 

 23:46: I think there's a lot of value to be said, rather than being maybe traditional bums on seats to mixture of consultancy with some thought leadership type world, to actually be more of a connection service, hybrid. 

 23:56: Do you think it's more of like a sort of checker trader type thing, so finding out what a company was and then almost have a commission-based thing, so if we find you a position. 

 24:04: And then subcontract out to, to our peers. 

 24:07: Is that your, one of your thoughts? 

 24:09: It could be a model, and not quite gone check a trader, but this idea of kind of like initial console idea of finding out what the problem is, what sort of things they're looking to achieve, that initial sort of generic fact finding, short, sharp, quickly. 

 24:23: Obviously the more time you spend, the higher quality it gets, but obviously the more cost. 

 24:27: And so it's a balancing act, but then it's about connecting people that we've got that may be specialists in agile worlds, specialists in pharmaceutical worlds, specialists in automation worlds, specialists in the AI world, specialists in. 

 24:40: Hardware testing specialists in, you know, formware, especially in mobile, and a lot of people can be multiple specialists, don't get me wrong, but it's sometimes gonna be a mixture of connecting who we've got. 

 24:50: But also let's not be limited by whom we have. 

 24:53: Time might be the pressure, but basically almost being a connecting service that allows us to connect testers to geeks, for want of a better word, for short-term consultancy, thought leadership roles, maybe. 

 25:05: Is that not just a recruitment, you know, for contractors? 

 25:07: , it's consultancy often not just a way of recruiting people to solve a problem. 

 25:13: but yeah, it's a, it's, it's a hybrid is what I'm saying. 

 25:16: But you're right, there's an element of that in. 

 25:18: But if you're connecting people and if you're doing that initial assessment to find the right person for them, you're taking that lifting off them to find the right person. 

 25:25: So yes, but you're not finding them for. 

 25:28: You're finding them for a purpose, that could be, we need to improve our efficiencies, we need to reduce the bug counts, we need to, you know, solving our problem rather than hiring a body, if you see what I mean. 

 25:38: Yeah, no, absolutely. 

 25:39: But there's a crossover definitely. 

 25:42: Yeah, because actually it, again, it, it empowers the customer to have confidence in what they're getting. 

 25:49: So therefore the, the onus is on us trying to find the right person rather than us having a good contractor to put in a role. 

 25:56: Yeah, we're not just selling a bench. 

 26:00: We're just saying that they can fit because they've done a course in mobile last week. 

 26:05: Therefore they're mobile experts these days. 

 26:06: But it's, I said, it's a hybrid, it depends on the gig. 

 26:09: A lot of people that want consultancy, they want them to deliver a project for them, so they actually want time and materials, they want resources to deliver something, or they're wanting change. 

 26:19: Change of process, change of bug counts, change of failure rates, some. 

 26:24: So it depends which way the client is driving, but part of testing peers is community and actually maybe we use, we could use that community to. 

 26:34: To build a pool of people that are available and so on, and you know, enable connections between people for a finder's fee, which is very similar in some ways to a kind of consultancy. 

 26:46: It's a partnership model as well, isn't it? 

 26:49: Yeah, but, but it's maybe it's a hybrid of both is the point, as in, you know, we'd say we don't know everything, but we know a lot of people and actually we've got some resources, some specialties, some knowledge, we'll come in, do it. 

 26:59: We'll help connect you to the right people because that's the strength we've got. 

 27:02: We've got a pool of not people on the bench, therefore we're not gonna hike your price up. 

 27:08: We're not gonna charge you 20% of their fees every month. 

 27:11: You know, we, we'll do something of that ilk, and it's for short term gigs, not for 12 month contract to be a test manager in their company. 

 27:18: It's not for that, it's more, we have a problem, we need help. 

 27:22: Who are you gonna call? 

 27:23: Testing peers. 

 27:24: So who would be your ideal client, cos we can talk about all the things we want to do, but ultimately if there isn't a client that existed that would want those sorts of things, where would you want to target, where would you want to spend your time? 

 27:35: And and build that sort of initial pitch to sort of gain that credibility in the field. 

 27:42: So there's a part of me that wants to say that I would love to target startups because they're still like green and moldable, and the other part of me knows that startups are so volatile that even if you molded them once, that could just be completely gone in 6 months. 

 27:58: And they don't even have the same projects anymore. 

 28:01: I don't know. 

 28:01: That's a hard question. 

 28:02: See, I thought startup like Utara, then I went to scale-ups. 

 28:06: That seemed a better approach. 

 28:08: Or people that realize they need, they realize they're long in the tooth. 

 28:10: They need to change, but they just don't have the knowledge or skills, and their first reaction is, well, let's hire 10 experts. 

 28:16: let's say we do releases every year on floppy disks still. 

 28:21: yes, some people do that. 

 28:23: we need to change. 

 28:25: We don't know how, so help us. 

 28:27: And it could be of setting up structures, setting up strategies and guiding them to to that as well as finding the right people. 

 28:35: A bit of everything, but yeah, I, I don't really want to supplement. 

 28:40: Major corporations, projects to deliver a new mobile app, for example, same old sort of thing they've been doing for years, but just with some people from testing peers working for them, if that makes sense. 

 28:50: And I think the problem with large established companies is that that sometimes they need a culture change rather than a,, you know, even if they want, if they if they say they want to change, they might not be engaged in the change. 

 29:03: Whereas I think, as you say, startups and scale-ups, they, they are going through that evolution anyway, and so therefore they are more, they want to do things better, more efficiently, and they're probably more open to listening and taking risks and trying new things in that iterative way rather than being a bit, as you say, wrestled long in the tooth. 

 29:23: So, so as we talk about like the dream goal. 

 29:27: The thing that keeps popping up as I listen to you guys is that I would like to be able to come back at various future checkpoints, just to come back and say, how's it going? 

 29:37: What adjustments do we need to make? 

 29:40: Do you no longer need me? 

 29:41: Because I've seen so many consultants come into various places that I've worked, and they do all of this work, and then nothing happens with it. 

 29:50: And I want to be able to come back 6 months later and go, what have we done with that? 

 29:55: I was thinking a lot about this when I was, when I was playing with the idea of the art of the possible, when I was without regular full-time employment, I thought, is this really a thing? 

 30:09: Could this really happen? 

 30:11: And I sort of, I found myself definitely going down the line of thinking startups and scale-ups would work better for the kind of services I, me alone, Chris could offer, and it was about a place that wants to embed or have transformation of some sort of scale involving what might be called quality engineering in an organization where there's opportunity to to look at culture. 

 30:37: Look at proactive software development with quality mindset and all of those things, and I thought, a lot of places don't have the money or the desire to hire a non-individual contributor on a permanent level, so that's sort of, like Russell spoke to earlier, like a sort of strategic and,, and a cultural setup where we, we embed some of that into your group and we identify text stacks and person specs and things that you'd want to do and you help advise on that sort of basis. 

 31:13: And then to Tara's point as well, very much a point of, you know, we'll do this for like 6, 12 weeks, we'll set you up and then we'll have some checkpoints. 

 31:21: You'll have like a retainer for X number of days for the rest of, rest of the calendar year or something, just to check in and see how we're getting on. 

 31:28: Is there anything else you need? 

 31:30: Whatever. 

 31:31: Develop some sort of partnerships with different tool vendors and be like, hey, if you want an intro, we can sort you out with those things. 

 31:38: If you want some folks that are experts in blah, cool. 

 31:41: If you want some workshops on particular items, we know people, like you said. 

 31:45: I feel like a lot of those things happened in terms of this discussion. 

 31:49: So I don't think it's the craziest idea in the world, what we have here. 

 31:53: What I do still think we would need outside of this room is people who are really good at unlocking that door to the people who would like that sort of a conversation. 

 32:06: Because just posting arbitrarily on LinkedIn or whatever and going, hey, do you need some quality stuff? 

 32:11: Everyone's doing that stuff, how do you stand out? 

 32:14: How do you get those conversations, how do you mix with those people? 

 32:16: It's a mixture of sales, marketing, but networking and that stuff, and we are super good at that software testing echo chamber, breaking out of that place. 

 32:28: I wanted to circle back. 

 32:30: I'm, I'm renowned for this, but to Tama's point about the, you know, going back after 6 months, I think that it's a really good idea, because I was thinking, the example I was going to give was your television programs, programs like Super Nanny. 

 32:43: You know, Super Nanny goes in, sees problem children. 

 32:47: Says it's the parents' fault, changes the parent, and then, then she goes, see how it goes. 

 32:52: Now maybe she hasn't given all the information, but she, so she disappears off for two weeks and then she comes back and she makes, makes some further changes. 

 32:58: But that's exactly what might happen in, as Tara said, it happens quite often. 

 33:03: People come in, they're change agents, they make these changes. 

 33:08: They weren't given quite enough information or they haven't got the confidence, or they, they aren't able to change. 

 33:14: And so therefore, some people start reverting back to type, and therefore the whole situation goes backwards and they go, oh well, what, what is the point of spending all that money anyway? 

 33:22: Whereas actually it may just need a tweak. 

 33:25: If it was, if it came in a month later and gone, actually, hang on, you've missed off this bit, you, you haven't quite understanding that bit. 

 33:31: I've seen it work elsewhere, it does work, it will work here type things. 

 33:35: Seeing that that slight changes and from an expert's point of view, is really, really helpful, I would say. 

 33:41: Yeah, it's baby steps, iterations, right? 

 33:44: Everything we do comes down to iterations, whether it's human behavior or major software changes. 

 33:50: I, I feel like everything comes down to if you can break it into small enough chunks, the human brain can process it and make adjustments. 

 33:58: So, what we haven't done friends, is launch Testing Piers consultancy just yet. 

 34:04: But it's nice to think, it's nice to dream. 

 34:06: It's nice to put things out there and have that conversation. 

 34:10: Maybe you listeners have found things that you think resonate. 

 34:13: Interesting. 

 34:14: What would your ideal job be? 

 34:15: What would your ideal consultancy be like? 

 34:18: Who would you wanna work with? 

 34:19: I think it's always good to reflect on these. 

 34:21: Yeah, well, where do you, yeah, if you do want to hire us, mate, you can find us. 

 34:26: But honestly, I think it's, it's really cool to, to just sort of sit back and go, no rules, where would you go and what would you do? 

 34:33: It's, it's, it's fun to dream. 

 34:35: Sometimes life gets you down heavy. 

 34:38: Busy, let's just take, take away though, let's spin the ideas. 

 34:42: I would love to work with these 3 and other wonderful peers. 

 34:46: Maybe one day it will happen. 

 34:48: If you want to hear more about us, we've got over 140 episodes of the podcast. 

 34:53: Go mad. 

 34:54: Share it with your friends, like, share and subscribe. 

 34:56: Why not? 

 34:57: We never ask people to do that. 

 34:59: Contact us at testingpeers.com or find us on LinkedIn. 

 35:03: We're sometimes on other socials too, but not really friends. 

 35:08: Thank you Tara for joining us tonight. 

 35:10: And we will speak to you, well, sort of, next time. 

 35:15: For now, it's goodbye from the testing peers. 

 35:18: Goodbye.