Testing Economics: Treat QA as Insurance Against Failures - Vitaly Sharovatov

How Testers Can Use Economics to Influence Quality Decisions in Software Development

In this episode, I talk with Vitaly Sharovatov about the economics of testing. We ask how testers can sell quality to managers who think in money, risk, and time. Vitaly frames testing like insurance. You pay now to lower the chance or impact of pain later. He shows where to find numbers that speak. Churn, support hours, rework in Jira, failed handoffs, and regulatory risk. Start small. Pair with developers, cut waste, count saved hours, and share clear wins. Then aim bigger. Shorter time to market, better UX, fewer angry users.

"We are paying with efforts and time for things which don't occur, which is very, very strange to do." - Vitaly Sharovatov

As a quality enthusiast, Vitaly Sharovatov believes that people should take pride in their work and companies should aim to produce high-quality products. He has spent the last 23 years in IT, focusing on engineering, QA, and mentorship. He is also a huge animal lover and has saved and raised more than 50 cats and dogs.

Highlights:

• Framing testing decisions in financial terms gives testers a concrete fallback: if a manager overrides a risk warning, the tester can request a written sign-off, which protects their job security.
• Reducing visible, repetitive waste first (such as features returned from testing to development because they were untestable) builds the credibility needed before proposing larger investments in quality.
• Testers have more direct exposure to real user behavior than product managers do, because regression and exploratory testing requires them to follow the full user journey from signup to cancellation.
• Customer support time spent routing user complaints into existing bug reports is a direct, measurable cost that can anchor a business case for better QA without requiring complex financial modeling.

More Links with Insights:

• QA collaborative community

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