[soulnothing]

I think an auxillary testing group is a good idea. Someone who tests all the components as a cohesive whole. Ensuring it acts as expected in terms of businesss expectations.

My experience though has been counter productive though. I expect a bit of lead time, introducing them to the code base. But I had daily meetings covering the code base, and what it was delivering. Then several weeks of meetings mapping out test cases into a spread sheet, with the various results.

There is a fine balance, but when executed properly they are worth it.