With new technologies opening up new markets and opportunities for companies, this brings the need for additional effort to be expended to make sure that all is working as expected. As with all new adventures, a strategy is required providing direction, accountability and reassurance to the staff, board and investors. Irrespective of the tools and methods defined within the strategy it will need to provide a set of actions that will result in successful testing activity for the company. Here are five points to keep in mind when preparing the strategy.
New technologies bring their own challenges that need to be overcome but in defining the strategy that meets the new challenges you should not lose sight of existing commitments. Existing activities will still need to be completed so the new strategy should not detract and/or damage the work being currently undertaken.
Will the strategy create a world beating test department or result in gains in some areas but impact the success of operations within other areas of the company? The ‘Great Leap Forward’ campaign of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) did meet some of its goals but also resulted in unplanned disasters. It is therefore important to consider the impact of the strategy on all areas of the organization and not view it in isolation.
For the strategy to work it is key that the business supports the activity, that project leaders understand the benefits and staff are working to the new goals. Without all parties supporting the strategy the full benefits will not be reached.
How much is the company willing to invest in the new strategy? Buying new tools, training staff, recruitment and time will all have cost implications. How soon will you be expected to show a return to the company? The strategy needs to be able to show how this return can be measured be it an increase in quality, shorter timescales and/or increase in productivity. How the new strategy will impact future works will also need to be taken into account.
The new strategy has been defined or is in place and a new idea, product and/or process becomes available. Do you jump straight on to the bandwagon and rewrite the strategy to be at the cutting edge or do you wait to see how things shape up before committing?
Any new strategy should leave you with the flexibility to continue undertaking the existing business process alongside any future expansion required to meet the needs of the company.
The digital market place is the latest opportunity to face the testing community and how a company chooses to deal with this will be dependent on the needs of each organization. However, testing the digital market place is still testing. The strategy will define who delivers the testing such as; in-house teams, outsourced or crowdsourced testing and will use a range of methodologies and tools to accomplish the task and adopting these five key points will help to ensure that your strategy is a success.
