How many questions should we send?

Send the questions that change your decision. For a first shortlist, filter by your situation and keep the themes you will actually score. A long questionnaire with generic answers tells you less than a short one answered with specifics.

Should the vendor see the strong and weak answers?

No. Send the vendor version. Keep the buyer's guide for your evaluators so they score answers against the same markers.

How do we score the answers?

Score each answer 0 to 5 in the CSV, or carry the results into the scorecard under the matching criterion. A missing or generic answer scores zero.

Where do the questions come from?

Each question in the framework cites a public standard, regulator or government guidance. The sources are listed on the methodology page.

Vendor questionnaire

81 questions by theme, each with why it matters and what strong and weak answers sound like.

What this does

The question bank holds 81 questions in 8 themes: team and staffing, process, automation and code ownership, tooling, security and data, reporting, commercials and exit. Each question is written to make a vendor show how it actually works, not how it describes itself.

Choose your situation and themes, add your details, and export either the vendor version with answer spaces or the buyer's guide with the rationale and answer markers. The CSV works as a form: vendors fill the answer column, your evaluators fill the score column.

See a sample output

QA vendor questionnaire: buyer's guide

ChooseQAVendor framework v1.0. Situation: Automation build-out. 27 questions. Nothing you enter in the toolkit is sent anywhere.

Issued by Example Product Ltd. Please answer every question in writing by Friday of week 3. Answer with specifics: names, documents, numbers and examples. Where you cannot answer, say so; a blank or generic answer scores zero.

Team and staffing

Who actually does the work, how senior they are, and what happens when people leave.

1. Who, by name and role, will work on our account in the first three months? Please share their CVs and confirm these are the people who will start, not examples.

Why it matters: The people named in a proposal are often not the people who arrive. Asking for named CVs up front lets you hold the vendor to the team you evaluated.

Strong answer: Named individuals with CVs, their current allocation, a start date for each, and a willingness to list them as key personnel in the contract.

Weak answer: "Sample profiles", "a team like this", or "we will assign the right people once the contract is signed".

2. Who is the single accountable lead on your side, how much of their time is allocated to us, and what decisions can they make without escalating?

Why it matters: A lead spread across many accounts cannot make timely decisions. Knowing their allocation and authority tells you how fast problems get resolved.

Strong answer: A named lead with a stated percentage of time on your account, a list of decisions they own, and the escalation route for the rest.

Weak answer: "Your account manager will coordinate everything" with no allocation or decision rights stated.

3. How will your testers work inside our team day to day: which of our meetings do they attend, whose backlog do they work from, and who on our side assigns their work?

Why it matters: Testing works well when testers sit in the delivery team rather than receive builds over a wall. The answer shows whether the vendor expects to be embedded or separate.

Strong answer: A concrete working model: which ceremonies they join, the shared tools and backlog they use, and a named buyer contact who prioritises their work.

Weak answer: "We adapt to any process" with no description of how, or a model where testing happens only at the end of each release.

7 more pages in the download.

Sample files:Sample Markdown 17 KB Sample CSV 16 KB Blank Markdown 17 KB Blank CSV 14 KB

Build your questionnaire

Your situation

Keeps the questions that apply to your situation. Choose no specific situation to include all.

Your organisation

Appears in the introduction the vendor reads.

Answers due

For example a date, or 'with the proposal'.

Version

The vendor version has answer spaces. The buyer's guide adds why each question matters and what strong and weak answers sound like: keep it for your evaluators.

81 questions selected.

QA vendor questionnaire

ChooseQAVendor framework v1.0. Situation: General. 81 questions. Nothing you enter in the toolkit is sent anywhere.

Issued by [Buyer]. Please answer every question in writing. Answer with specifics: names, documents, numbers and examples. Where you cannot answer, say so; a blank or generic answer scores zero.