In this Basecamp Office Hours session (recorded live on November 6, 2024), the two-person Quality Assurance team from 37signals walk through how they use Basecamp for QA. They share best practices for organizing projects for their QA function and answer customer questions live.

For full chat access, rewatch the session here: https://www.crowdcast.io/c/74z68ghmuhqv

Timestamps:

00:00 – Welcome

03:04 – The QA team

04:56 – QA team's Home Screen organization

06:33 – The QA project

07:22 – To-do list templates for QA

08:24 – Docs & Files, Schedule & Chat

08:59 – All-access project

09:25 – Card Table inside the QA project

12:36 – Moving a card through the Card Table

14:05 – Prioritizing the QA workload

16:20 – Getting notifications for Card Table movements

17:30 – Card Table "On Hold"

18:06 – Cycle project organization

20:16 – QA table within a cycle project

22:09 – Live Q&A: What are the expectations and scope of testing for programmers and the QA team?

25:56 – How the team uses both the QA project and the cycle projects

26:35 – QA as shared responsibilities vs. gatekeeping

28:55 – Projects for bug tracking

32:35 – Tracking known issues

36:32 – Quick wins

37:50 – Reorganizing cards

38:51 – Live Q&A: Does Basecamp regress test every single code push to production?

40:00 – Live Q&A: How do you do Q/A at a pre-seed start-up when you're both the PM and the only person doing QA? Any tips?

43:11 – Live Q&A: Does QA use any automated testing, or is it all manual?

44:56 – Live Q&A: How do you stagger pushes to production for different feature releases?

46:11 – Live Q&A: Does anyone get blamed when there is a bug found in production?

48:58 – Live Q&A: When customers report bugs, what kind of responses can they expect, and what kind of promises are given in terms of resolution?

51:00 – Live Q&A: Does QA become a tight bottleneck when one of the two QA people is on PTO?

52:43 – Live Q&A: Do QA issues block release?

53:04 – Live Q&A: Are all features from all products QA tested? How do you handle the workload if there are many features on queue to be tested?

53:47 – Live Q&A: How do you handle the fact that card table activity does not show up in the project activity timeline?

55:27 – Live Q&A: Does the QA team play a role in the product team's planning or Shape Up process?

56:48 – Live Q&A: What inspires you to enter and continue to work in the QA field?

59:06 – Wrap-up

Helpful Links:
🔗 Video tutorials: https://basecamp.com/learn
🔗 Using Card Table help guide & video: https://3.basecamp-help.com/article/676-card-tables
🔗 REWORK podcast: https://37signals.com/podcast/

For follow up questions, reach out to support@basecamp.com