While an application’s functionality is very important, users have equally started to value non-functional areas—such as performance, usability, accessibility, and UI—and are often ready to move on to other options if an application's performance does not meet their needs.

Testers have a story. It involves the kind of information we gather, the way we gather it, whom we tell, and what decisions are impacted by it. Management has their own story, but sometimes the goals are different. Find out the story your executives have for testing, and see what value it brings.

At work, the evidence of something worth paying attention to is often front and center, and yet we dismiss it. If you ignore the data—negative survey results, team member absences, an increase in bugs, stakeholders who repeatedly miss meetings, etc.—you could be overlooking signs of trouble.