Establishing a Testing Center of Excellence: The Pros and Cons

Many testing organizations view implementing a Testing Center of Excellence (TCoE) as a positive step toward providing better service to their clients. They understand how a TCoE can define and promote standard testing practices, consolidate testing tools, reduce costs, define testing boundaries, and provide specialized testing services. Unfortunately, many organizations, as they work to establish their TCoE, face problems and don’t achieve the promised benefits. Raja Neravati explores approaches for overcoming the challenges of implementing a TCoE. He describes a “tested” TCoE implementation process to address business goals, stakeholder interests, span of control, budgets, and quality problems. Because not every organization can benefit by adopting a TCoE, Raja describes situations-specific organizational cultures, development methodologies, geographic dispersion, resource limitations, and testing volumes-where decentralization of testing can yield better results. If your organization is considering or has implemented a TCoE, join in to accelerate your journey toward improved testing and quality through Raja’s experiences and guidance.