Process versus skill

An accounting class might discuss teams as either a cost center, a profit center, or an investment center. A cost center is simply the cost of doing business and should be kept to a minimum. A profit center has expenses but also generates revenue. Cutting a salesperson back from a profit center will decrease expenses, but if it decreases revenue more, it is a mistake. Investment centers have costs and profits, but also save some of the money to invest in a positive cash return.

The most simplistic view is that the sales staff are a profit center while the people building the software are all cost. Thanks to Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), companies are increasingly able to see development as an investment. After all, development creates the software, which is itself valued as a projection of future cash flows. Still, testing as a discrete activity is likely seen as a cost.

For decades, we’ve seen the idea of testing as too late touted loudly in the literature...