Practices/02 QA & testing

Find the defectsbefore your customers do.

Testing and quality engineering for software where a defect costs money. We agree on what done means, build the tests, run them on every release, and give you the evidence to sign off.

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The release review we run with clients: exit criteria, open defects, and a clear go or no-go.

What we do.And how you will know it worked.

Every defect a customer finds costs more to fix and costs trust you have to win back. We find them first.

Since 1994 · Dallas, Texas
Salesforce certified consulting partner
ASTQB-accredited training provider
ISTQB CT-AI accredited

Test programs

Today

Releases break and customers find the bugs first.

With Rex Black Inc.

A test program built on risk: clear exit criteria, evidence for every release, and regression tests that run on every change.

What you get

Risk-based test strategy and master test plan
Exit criteria agreed with the business before testing starts
Regression suite wired into your CI pipeline
A release review for every release: what was tested, what failed, what is still open

How you know it is done

Every release goes out with an exit-criteria report, like the one shown above.

Security testing

Today

Security gets checked once a year, right before the audit.

With Rex Black Inc.

Security testing built into delivery, with findings ranked by business risk and retested after every fix.

What you get

Threat model of the flows that handle money and personal data
Application and API security testing inside each release
Findings ranked by business impact, not just scanner severity
Every fix retested before the finding closes

How you know it is done

A findings register your auditors can read, with retest results attached.

Testing AI features

Today

Your AI feature gives different answers to the same question, and nobody knows how to test that.

With Rex Black Inc.

Evaluation suites for chatbots, search, and agents, with checks that catch quiet changes in behavior before customers do.

What you get

Evaluation set built from real customer questions
Scoring for accuracy, safety, and tone
Regression checks on every model, prompt, or data change
Monitoring for quiet changes in behavior once it is live

How you know it is done

A scorecard for each release showing how the AI answered the same questions as last time.

Measured results

All case studies →

50%+

Defect Reduction

Gaming / Entertainment

Quality at Scale

Comprehensive QA programs and test automation for studios managing massive multiplayer environments and rapid release cycles.

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DoD

Compliance Achieved

Mission-Critical QA

Test Phases

Independent Test Organization for a Device + Service Product

Build Cycles

Six-Cycle System Test to a Fixed Go-Live

How it runs.Study, measure, build, own.

01
Study
The product, the release process, and where defects have reached customers before.
02
Measure
Every risk area gets a likelihood and an impact, so testing effort goes where failure costs the most.
03
Build
Test plan, exit criteria, and a regression suite running against your next release.
04
Own
We run the release review with you and stay through launch and the releases after it.

Questionswe hear first.

Do you replace our QA team?

No. We work alongside your engineers and testers, or act as the test team when you do not have one. Either way your people keep the plans, the suites, and the know-how when we step back.

Which tools do you use?

Yours, where they work. We build on the frameworks and CI you already run and recommend changes only where a tool is costing you coverage.

Can you test AI features and agents?

Yes. We build evaluation suites from real customer questions and rerun them on every model, prompt, or data change. We are also accredited to teach ISTQB Certified Tester AI.

How do we start?

With a short assessment of your testing and release process. You get a ranked list of risks and what to fix first, whether or not we do the work.

Free to read

Open the library →

Process · The Master Framework

Four phases, applied in order, every project.

The top-level testing process used on every engagement. Four phases contain twelve sub-processes, each of which is documented in its own checklist in this library.

Checklist →

Talk · Rex Black Inc.

Investing in software testing.

Software testing is an investment. The wrong tests return zero, or worse, a false sense of security. The right tests, selected against customer usage profiles and weighted by quality risk, can cut customer-found defects by two-thirds and return roughly four dollars for every dollar spent. This talk walks through the baseline, the math, and the program that makes the numbers real.

Slide deck →

Guide

The ISTQB Advanced Level path, mapped

The Advanced Level landscape keeps changing, CTAL-TA v4.0 shipped May 2025, CTAL-TM is on v3.0, CTAL-TAE is on v2.0. This guide maps all four core modules, prerequisites, exam formats, sunset dates, and which module a given role should take first. Links directly to the authoritative istqb.org syllabi.

Cert roadmap →

Whitepaper

Evaluation Before Shipping: How to Test an AI Application Before It Hits Production

The release-gate playbook for AI features. Covers the five evaluation dimensions, how to build a lean golden set, where LLM-as-judge is trustworthy and where it lies, rollout mechanics with named exit criteria, and the regression suite that keeps a shipped AI feature from quietly rotting in production.

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Process · Context Discovery

Learn the ground before you move it.

The first thing a test leader should do at a new organization is understand the context. These five steps keep you from proposing the wrong solution because you misread the problem.

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Talk · Rex Black Inc.

Four ways testing adds value.

A smart test group can add measurable value in four ways, not one: by finding bugs that get fixed (or are prevented entirely), by finding bugs that don't get fixed but are documented and worked around, by mitigating expensive quality risks like insurance does, and by providing credible information that guides the project to success. This talk walks through each of the four with real numbers, building up from the ROI calculation in "Investing in Software Testing" into a composite case that (in the worked example) lands at 738% ROI.

Slide deck →

What did the last defect your customers found cost you?Let's put a number on it.

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