Software testing FAQ:
straight answers to common questions.

PinnacleQM is an Australian software testing, quality engineering and digital business assurance consultancy, founded in 2014 and headquartered in Perth. It helps enterprises and government agencies deliver IT change with less risk, effort and cost through consulting, project delivery, managed services and its own AI automation platforms.

PinnacleQM works across eight industries: banking and finance, government, healthcare, natural resources and mining, energy and utilities, transportation, automotive, and software vendors. Each industry page explains the systems, challenges and results PinnacleQM has delivered in that sector, along with the platforms and accelerators built for it.

PinnacleQM combines more than 30 years of international experience with its own AI automation platforms, built in its R&D labs. Natural-language, no-code assets are reused from delivery into regression, acceptance and operations, so clients test more with fewer people. Results include a 125-person regression team replaced by 12 and a $10 million-plus programme saving.

Most clients start with a consultation about the change they are planning, the systems involved and where delivery is at risk. PinnacleQM then recommends a next step: a maturity assessment, a platform demo or trial on a representative workflow, or a proposal for project or managed services. Consultations and demos can be booked online.

PinnacleQM offers staff augmentation, project delivery, managed services, outcome-based work packages and offshore delivery, as well as platform subscriptions. Many clients start with augmentation or a project and move to managed or outcome-based delivery as trust and scale grow, keeping the same people and knowledge.

Through four tiers: daily delivery management and defect triage during critical periods, weekly operational reviews, monthly service reviews of KPIs and service levels, and quarterly strategic reviews of maturity, innovation and investment. A single service delivery manager is the principal contact, with escalation to PinnacleQM’s delivery director or board.

Yes. PinnacleQM supports the transition of services and assets at the end of an engagement, and keeps test assets in accessible, exportable formats. Handover can include database copies, data extracts or automated conversion of PinnacleQM scripts to another platform, so you retain your investment.

Software testing checks that a system works as specified. Digital business assurance goes further: it makes sure the whole project team, IT and business, works towards the same quality outcome, covering strategy, test management, automation, business acceptance and production readiness, so go-live decisions rest on evidence of business risk.

PinnacleQM uses its Enterprise Test Strategy Framework, combining a quality assurance policy, an enterprise test strategy and a defect management plan, with a “Quality Built In” approach from project feasibility onwards. It is risk-based and aligned with ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119, ISO/IEC 25010 and ISTQB, and supports Agile, DevOps, hybrid and waterfall delivery.

Yes. PinnacleQM’s non-functional assurance covers performance, resilience, security, privacy, accessibility, compatibility, recoverability and operational readiness, with controls aligned to standards such as OWASP ASVS and WCAG 2.2 AA where relevant. Each is scaled to the risk of the change being delivered.

Authorise automates business acceptance. Users define acceptance criteria once; virtual workers run the processes, rerun until they pass and record video evidence; users review and approve online. PinnacleQM has cut repeat UAT effort by more than 80% on past programmes, freeing business teams for their day jobs.

Yes. PinnacleQM establishes one defect process, one register and one view of release risk across all vendors, with daily triage during critical periods and a dependency traceability matrix linking requirements to vendor deliverables, tests and decisions. The release decision stays with the client, supported by PinnacleQM’s independent recommendation.

No. PinnacleQM’s platforms use natural-language, no-code scripts that testers, business analysts and business users can write and read. PinnacleQM’s technical team handles the initial machine-learning setup for each application, after which your team can build and maintain automation without specialist programming skills.

Yes. Enginuity can act as a no-code AI framework on top of Selenium for web and mobile, and PinnacleQM can use Enginuity’s machine learning to convert most common coded scripts, including Selenium, into natural-language scripts executed by virtual workers. This conversion is carried out with support from PinnacleQM’s technical team.

Enginuity uses AI scans to detect changes in the application under test and relearn them, so tests self-heal. Reusable components mean one change usually needs one update rather than many script edits. For one core banking upgrade with 1,383 screen changes, the automation was updated in 2 hours with no test pack changes.

PinnacleQM’s AI automation supports all test types across the technology stack: user interface, API, interface and service, and database levels, on web, mobile, mainframe and green-screen applications. One natural-language test can combine them, giving complete end-to-end coverage of business processes across multiple systems.

PinnacleQM’s platforms run on AWS and Azure and are sized to demand, and virtual workers scale from one to very large numbers for concurrent execution. In practice the limit is usually the test environment’s capacity to handle the volume of tests, rather than the automation platform itself.

Yes. QMFactory can be integrated into your pipeline so tests are triggered and results collated centrally, or the pipeline can call Enginuity directly to run virtual testers for each build. PinnacleQM’s open APIs also connect to ticketing systems, so support changes trigger the right regression before deployment.

PinnacleQM uses synthetic or obfuscated data wherever practicable. Enigma replaces personal and sensitive data, including free-text fields, while keeping referential integrity, so tests behave realistically without exposing individuals. Production data is only handled under approved access, handling and retention controls agreed with the client.

Where required, data stays in its country of origin, for example Australian customer data in Australia. PinnacleQM’s platforms can be hosted on PinnacleQM’s AWS or Azure environments or installed in your own cloud, data centre or test environments, so hosting can match your residency and security requirements.

Only with your approval. PinnacleQM’s offshore delivery centres are introduced only after you agree, and once security, privacy, data-access and residency controls are in place. Offshore teams typically work with obfuscated data, so they can test realistically without seeing personal information.

AI supports people rather than replacing their judgement. All AI-generated test artefacts are reviewed by qualified staff; there are no autonomous release or acceptance decisions; approved models and data locations are used; data is minimised and obfuscated before any AI use; and client data is never used to train public AI models.

Yes. PinnacleQM’s platforms are available as a service on AWS and Azure, and can also be installed in your own environment under licence. Software vendors can enable platforms for all their customer instances and share the subscription cost across their client group.

Every customer with an active licence receives a defined support and maintenance agreement, and PinnacleQM’s team is available online for service requests. Formal training and certification are available for every product, online or in the classroom, with specialist certification for teams using several PinnacleQM products.

Yes. PinnacleQM offers guided demos and trials, including a proof of value on a representative workflow in your own environment with success criteria agreed before work starts. The Trials & Demos page lets you choose the format and the platforms you want to see.

Measures are agreed after a baseline assessment, for example severity 1 and 2 production defects, critical-risk coverage, test cycle duration, release predictability, automation reliability, cost of testing per release and stakeholder satisfaction. PinnacleQM does not set arbitrary targets before understanding your baseline and priorities.