Justify your existence

I just returned from the Testing SIG for the Australian Computer Society. Today's topic was on Test Metrics. It was a good collaborative session on the topic of testing metrics and how they can be used to put it simply justify your existence.

It made me think back to when first started testing at Runge. Testing was non existent and there was a lot of skepticism about the need for more employees who drain money rather then adding to the bottom line.

It was hard work metrics were non existent. So we had a lot of work to do but while waiting for the metrics to come through. We didn't just sit back, we needed more testers and fast. So we were forced to act and not just justify our existence but need for more testers.

One of things we did the best was to celebrate the losses. Like when a bug made it through to the client. This may sound crazy but for us it was a perfect time to go and speak to our internal clients. We would deflect the attack on us by joining them. Our testing was not good enough but while we were agreeing with them. We would ask how we can improve it?

All of a sudden these testing guys weren't that bad. Actually they were really good because it meant they didn't have to do all the testing. Slowly we won the little people over. This was how we justified our existence. For you see the little people talked to the big people. They mentioned how much more time they had to go earn money with the testers around.

So if you don't have all the metrics you think is needed to justify your existence. Maybe you can try what we did.