While some organisations still see testing as a necessary evil, more and more companies are working on a better and smarter way to organise the testing process. In this blog, we will not focus on the improvements themselves, but we will look at the five most important reasons to improve the testing process.
Higher quality
The most obvious reason to improve testing is to increase and/or secure quality. Although testing in itself does not increase quality, structured testing makes the quality - or lack of quality - of the various components transparent, prior to implementation. There are plenty of examples of organisations that have suffered considerable damage due to ICT problems. Often problems that could have been prevented if there had been proper testing. The website www.alsbestegetest.nl contains many appealing examples.
Lower costs
Many costs attributable to testing remain hidden. Think, for instance, of employees in the business who are involved in testing as core users, without any insight into the time spent. An immature test process causes a lot of wastage, resulting in longer turnaround times. This costs all those involved a lot of valuable time. Time and therefore money can be saved by making test cases reusable, testing only the most important parts, setting up a good findings procedure and coordinating the test cycle centrally with the help of a test management tool.
Boehm's law (from 1979) still applies. As a reminder, remediation costs increase exponentially with every step that a fault takes closer to the production environment. There are many examples of companies incurring significant costs to resolve ICT problems at a late stage. When problems only occur in the production environment, there are often additional costs resulting from damage to image, loss of turnover, claims, etc.
Meeting compliancy guidelines
More and more often, companies are being reprimanded during an audit or control. The most important reason: not having the change process in order, and especially the burden of proof concerning testing. A well-organised test process provides simple and quick insight into the various actions performed: Who tested what? Who tested what? When? And with what result?
Shorten time-to-market
Although many companies consider testing to be unstrategic, there is a strategic advantage to a mature testing process. If one does not succeed in detecting faults early on in the test phase, a lot of time is lost in fixing these faults in production (see also the first two points: higher quality and lower costs). Solving a production disruption makes a claim on the often already scarce development capacity. Consider also the extra effort for re-testing the error, extra regression testing effort from the business, extra transports, etc.
Put in positive terms: A streamlined test process makes it possible to implement wishes from the business more quickly. A short time-to-market for IT changes is increasingly becoming an important competitive advantage.
Creating space for innovations
In addition to the previous point, there is another reason why it is increasingly important not to waste too much time on an inefficient test process and on solving problems in production. Structurally, washing up with the tap on, not only increases the time-to-market, it also limits the room for innovation because people are too busy maintaining the current ICT.
Decide for yourself whether better testing is necessary!
Testersuite believes that investing in smarter and better testing should not be an end in itself. If you recognize one or more of the above reasons, we are convinced that a no-obligation meeting with our experts is more than worthwhile. Interested? Mail to info@testersuite.nl or call 073 711 45 20. You can also request an online demo directly. During a demo we will discuss your situation and advise you on possible improvements without any obligation.
