Remote Testing—testers working from home—has fundamentally altered software testing practices, introducing unique challenges in coordination, test management, team cohesion, and mental health. Some love it, others hate it, but for better or worse, the tech sector has been at the vanguard of the global shift toward remote working models.
It’s been years since the pandemic. Still, many companies I speak to have struggled to adapt to changing practices and have failed to implement effective working habits. Unfortunately, you can’t just continue as if nothing has changed—this approach just won’t cut it anymore.
Project teams must implement deliberate strategies to counteract these challenges, or remote testing teams risk inefficiencies, miscommunication, and disengagement.
In this week’s insight, I provide four actionable approaches that I have picked up from the many successful testing projects I talk to. These easy fixes will help you prevent collaboration disasters in your remote testing teams.
1. Centralised Asset Management: Eliminate Fragmented Workflows
Many test teams I speak to still rely on fragmented test assets, with test cases—often written in Word or Excel—on testers’ local machines.
As I’ve written about, and as I tell my customers, Word and Excel are not test tools—they are part of the problem, not part of the solution. They were terrible test tools when we all worked in the office, and they are even worse for remote teams where asynchronous work demands real-time access to updated assets, results, and data.
Implementing Unified Repositories
Centralised platforms such as OpenText™ Software Delivery Management (previously ALM Octane) address these challenges by providing a single, centralised source of truth for test assets, results, documentation, reports and more.
These tools often include versioning capabilities that enable teams to reuse standardised test components across projects, reducing redundancy in organisations with cross-functional testing needs.
2. Strategic License Management: Optimise Tool Accessibility
In the early days of the pandemic, I spoke to many test teams where testers struggled to access test tools. Several years on, I still speak to many who don’t have ready access to the tools they need.
In remote environments, software license mismanagement leads to idle team members, testing delays, and compliance issues. As I covered in Avoid License Penalties: Software Compliance in 3 Easy Steps, using site licences in the wrong location can lead to non-compliance and land you in trouble with your software vendor—and your testers’ home offices are often not covered by your contract.
Cloud-Native Licensing Models
Unlike on-premises options, Cloud-based testing tools such as OpenText Core Performance Engineering (previously LoadRunner Cloud) are often more flexible and can be used anywhere.
They offer further flexibility with ‘elastic licensing’, which allows you to dynamically scale your virtual users and test infrastructure based on your demands.
3. Overcommunication: Transparency Through Tool-Driven Updates
Another common problem I see is that remote testers often struggle to keep up with what’s happening with the broader test team, never mind the project or business as a whole. Maintaining a handle on project priorities, defect resolution progress, and requirement changes is tricky when conversations occur in the ether.
Traditional status meetings often fail to address these gaps, especially as projects progress and there’s an increased focus on ‘progress chasing’. They don’t leave time to cover other updates.
Overcommunicate with Real-Time Visibility
When working in remote test teams, it’s essential to have dashboards that auto-populate test execution metrics, defect trends, and coverage gaps—Tools that ensure every status update is immediately available to all.
This enables asynchronous alignment and lets the tools drive visibility. This helps avoid time-consuming and dull status meetings where the team just reports progress.
It’s also a great idea to set up automatic notifications within your test management tool to notify testers when developers release code for retest.
4. Structured 1-2-1 Engagement: Mitigating Isolation in Distributed Teams
I’ve spoken before of the mental health challenges faced by software testers, and these are magnified by remote working. A 2022 survey by Oak Engage found that “50% of remote workers feel more isolated and lonely working from home, and 35% admit that working from home has dramatically affected their mental health.
If you were starting out on your career today how happy and productive would you be if you were working the majority of your time from home. “…over half (53%) of younger remote workers (aged 16-24) admit working from home has dramatically affected their mental health”
Similar to section 3 above, traditional meetings and stand-ups are often way too focused on mission-critical items and fail to allow time for people to connect, never mind addressing personal development needs or providing safe spaces for candid feedback.
Ensure Impactful 1-2-1s
Some employees will cope better than others. Some will reach out to colleagues more and have regular calls or chats; however, you can’t assume everyone is doing this.
Actively setting up 1-2-1 meetings is vital in remote working environments. These must be high-frequency but don’t always need to be with the same person.
Yes, regular meetings with line management are essential, but managers (or software like Slack’s Donut integration) should schedule meetings between their reports and colleagues, simulating random ‘watercooler’ type conversations and interactions.
Conclusion: Building a Cohesive Remote Testing Culture
I speak with companies in all sorts of sectors, with many different cultures and working habits. Often, the most successful are the ones who have taken active steps to address the issues above and have combined technological investment and people-focused processes to help facilitate effective remote software testing.
Technological solutions like centralised asset management and elastic licensing form the operational backbone, making it much easier to adopt the more people-centred approaches—like overcommunication and structured 1-2-1s—that keep your team connected, up-to-date, and supported.
By prioritising transparency, accessibility, and empathy, you too can transform remote testing from a logistical challenge into a strategic advantage or, at the very least, make it more bearable.
