Influencing change
We can argue that testing is “just” a technical investigation to uncover quality-related information. That’s fine, as far as it goes — but it doesn’t go very far. If the test effort discovers problems, and those problems are well documented yet never read… nothing happens. The real value to the business of the test effort is zero. Perhaps the company gets lucky, and there are no “showstopper bugs,” and the customers don’t care. In that case, a rational executive should eliminate the testing budget. Or perhaps the company goes out of business.
Most of us don’t have that problem, but we may have a problem where testing finds defects, and some get fixed, but not enough. Just as bad, the programmers don’t learn from their mistakes, and keep creating the same kind of bugs, over and over again. This creates drag on the team. Some testers find this comforting as they will always have a job....