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.

The conventional approach to software automation for quality creates a losing situation for the people doing the work. When tests are reliable or take more time than first estimated, management and the rest of the team lose confidence. How can you produce consistently quick, quality information?