Let’s face it: your subject matter experts (SMEs) aren’t cheap. And every time you use them for testing, you’re squandering their skills for a task that could be performed by a far-cheaper software tester. But how do you get a tester to emulate your SMEs’ business-savvy? Simple—you get a computer to do it instead.
Photo courtesy of Chrissy H. (Creative Commons)
| With test automation, you can accomplish the lion’s share of your SMEs’ testing at record speed with the click of a mouse. And unlike testers (or even your SMEs, for that matter), a computer isn’t prone to human error. |
If you had $100 to spend, would you buy something that was only worth $50?
Of course you wouldn’t. Overspending for something is just plain crazy—especially when you have a viable alternative within plain sight.
Well, I hate to break it to you, but if your subject matter experts (SMEs) are playing a significant role in your organization’s testing effort (like running the same tests every time a new patch, release, or update comes down the pike), then it’s quite likely that you’re overspending on your testing.
And since SMEs tend to make upwards of $40,000 more than your average software tester, you might be losing a considerable sum whilst doing so. But while the solution—simply having your testers execute the testing your SMEs are currently doing—may seem obvious in theory, it’s a little more difficult in practice.
Oftentimes, SMEs are about the only people in their organizations with the requisite amount of business savvy to test their part of the system effectively (which means that there are some tests only they can do); and since many organizations don’t require rigorous test-case documentation, almost all of their knowledge is internal. Therefore, an organization would have to invest a lot of time (and money) just to bring testers up to speed—and while they may be cheaper, the amount it would cost to get dedicated software testers to cover a fraction of the SMEs’ testing workload is prohibitively expensive.
But what if that testing wasn’t being performed by salaried testers? What if you could effectively run those tests for free by using computers?
Well, you can—and it’s no more difficult than transferring your SMEs’ knowledge into a recorded script.
With test automation, you can accomplish the lion’s share of your SMEs’ testing at record speed with the click of a mouse. And unlike testers (or even your SMEs, for that matter), a computer isn’t prone to human error. Sure, there’s the up-front investment for the tool and the script recording; but if you’re freeing a host of SMEs from the costly confines of rigorous testing, that expense is nothing compared to the ROI you’ll have coming your way.
Provided you implement a sound strategy and are smart about what you choose to automate, you can cut your testing budget by as much as half—and that’s not even counting the savings that the business will gain by having more SME hours to utilize on profit-bearing initiatives.
That sure beats the heck out of spending $50 for something worth $100, no?
Cheers,
Mike Hodge
Lighthouse Technologies, Inc
Software Testing | Quality Assurance Consulting | Oracle EBS Consulting
