10 Reasons to Include Testers in Your Teams

Why certified testers? In the US, 88% of programmers say that they learn about bugs and software errors first through users, yet there is a more serious alarming factor: 26% of these same bugs are publicized on social networks - and it is not hard to imagine their impact.

ISTQB® Certifications help you reduce risks, costs, and protect your company's reputation.
We give you 10 good reasons to include testers in your software project teams:

1. Reduce the Quantity of Bugs and Software Errors

Studies show that "formal testing by certified personnel can achieve 99% efficiency in defect removal, while reducing costs and decreasing the workload to be performed"¹. 

2. Reduce Costs, Recover Investment

If a certification helps a tester eliminate just a single defect in production software, it would mean that the return on the investment in his certification has more than offset the estimated cost of the production bug.

3. Accelerate and Improve Software Development

Test team managers say that using the knowledge and terminology of ISTQB® Certifications improves communication and efficiency among project teams. Also, with the inclusion of certified testers, bug detection tends to be much more efficient and programmers are left with more time for their development activities.

4. Global Acceptance

With more than 750,000 test certifications issued in over 100 countries, ISTQB® Software Testing Certification has become a global model.
ISTQB® Certification exams are available in English, French, German, Spanish and even Portuguese and can be taken face-to-face or remotely from the comfort of your home.

5. Practical and Direct Application

The ISTQB® Certifications focus on the practical applications that testers use every day to detect and eliminate programming errors. Addressing areas as distinct as Testing in Agile Development, Performance Testing and Security Testing, these certifications allow you to build the testing skills needed by every project team, thus reducing the number of software defects.

6. Motivate and Retain Team Members; Reduce Costs

The costs of employee turnover have been the subject of many studies.
According to the American Psychological Associationin the absence of supervisor support for career development:

      • Less than half of employees say they are motivated to do their best in their role (versus almost 90% of those who say they have supervisor support);
      • More than half say they intend to look for a new job outside the organization in the coming year.

Supporting an employee's career by offering them ISTQB® training and certification is a fairly inexpensive support compared to the cost of losing that employee.
So ISTQB® certification not only motivates your team members and helps reduce software errors, it also creates a more stable team, reducing turnover costs.

7. Developing Testing Skills and Increasing Profitability

In addition to career development levels (Foundation, Advanced and Expert) and career paths (Test Manager, Test Analyst, Technical Test Analyst), ISTQB® offers specialized skills such as Agile Testing, Mobile Testing, Security Testing, Test Automation ,Performance Testing, Usability Testing that enhance the skills of your entire quality control team to detect and eliminate programming errors.

Studies indicate that companies that providespecialized training to their employees tend to make more profits than companies that invest less in training.

8. A Matter of Trust

In Portugal, hundreds of ISTQB® Certifications have already been issued with the PSTQB.

A PSTQBas a non-profit organization, led by software testing experts, is dedicated to promoting software quality in Portugal, and to elevating the professionalism of all people involved in testing processes.

9. Improve Cost-Efficiency

A PSTQB does not conduct training, this is not its function, however, it is its function to accredit entities that are capable of providing recommended training courses.in this sense, companies can allow their employees to use these options.

On the other hand, companies have the possibility of establishing a formal link with the PSTQB that allows them several benefits:

    • From direct discounts and priority registration at events PSTQB;
    • Career recognition, by advertising job offers for testers;
    • To international networking , providing a close relationship with experts in the field of software testing.
10. Meeting Software Quality Manpower Needs through Qualification

The need to hire qualified employees has been a concern in the business world, and several studies have described the importance of strengthening the professional skills of employees, as well as the urgency of retraining them.
The development of software testing skills proposed by ISTQB® Certifications responds precisely to the increasingly common and complex software quality requirements.

Articles translated and adapted from: 10 Reasons You Need Testers Certified by ASTQB - ISTQB® in the U.S.

Capers Jones, "A Short History Of The Cost Per Defect Metric | Software Defect Origins & Removal Methods."