The perceived value of testing is often related to how test teams believe — and promote — the idea that they “test for quality.” The reason I say that is because I maintain quality is value to someone whose opinion matters. You might want to check out my post on testing for quality where I covered a lot of these points. What I didn’t cover in that post is the value of testing itself. The value of testing can be trickier than you may think. Let’s start with this: people will place different value to the quality they perceive. Do we agree on that? If so, I argue that the value of testing that people perceive will be in direct proportion to how much they believe your testing tells them what they need to know. Different people will need to know different things given that their valuations regarding quality will be different in some cases.

What you end up with is dynamic assessment of value and it’s here that testers can start to think a bit more deeply about how what they do provides value.