Quality means money – learn how to decrease development costs

Why does Quality mean money?

Let me tell you the story of one of our customers… I can tell you right away – they have saved 16% of the development costs. In their case, it meant over 12k USD per month. It all comes down to Quality. Why? Because Quality sucks! And I’m saying that as an expert in Quality… But that is also the best tool to spot the burning hole in our pocket. 

Quality costs. Money, time, and resources. So why do we even bother? Because Quality is a metric that verifies if we are delivering the specified product and validating that it will satisfy users. How? Based on the testing process. Testers are the only ones that can provide you with precise info about the app. Sure, you know what has been made. You see it; you have been in the process. But can you be sure that someone from outside will have the same perception? 

It is not so uncommon to hear customers saying, “This is not what I wanted”. The testing process can not only find bugs. It can clarify the meaning of “what I wanted”! And make sure you meet those requirements. 

Our customer had a big problem with that. After implementing our Quality process, we discovered that 32% of the development time was spent on redos and bug fixes. Imagine the cost! We narrowed the root cause to misalignment between the dev team and stakeholders. Sounds obvious? So how do we fix that? 

It sucks, but we decided to spend additional money… on testing! Like the budget was not already being stretched, right? So why on earth would you do that? Hear me out! 

We started testing the requirements. Is that something testers can do? It is something they ought to do! Here’s why it helps real quick. 

The biggest issue

The biggest issue is usually in describing “what I want” and then translating it into language that everyone would understand the same. Why do testers work magic in this field? Because as long as you don’t know how to test it, what is the expected result, and what the end-user would expect, then you can’t test it. Testers would report defects in documentation, trying to clarify all the questions. Sure, you might not have time for that because you need to develop, develop, and develop. But do you have time to fix it later or spend developers’ time trying to know what the code should be like? And are you sure that you need to test all the requirements simultaneously? 

The great thing about modern delivery methodologies is that we need to know upfront what we will do in 2-4 weeks. And we already have planned it more or less. So the testers can start their work long before we even encounter any issues with the app. Suddenly adding a tester is a reasonable thing that speeds things up!  

Conclusion

Does it save money? Yes. Is it cheaper than correcting mistakes and misunderstandings? Yes. Are there any other superpowers that come with testing? YES! 

If you want to learn more about Quality’s advantages, book a meeting with me. I am always happy to help, explain and discuss! 

Kind Regards,
Habib