How much testing do we need?

Listen everybody, I keep reading about all these people who go to conferences, they are noticeable speakers, have something to say about QA and I appreciate that.

I wish I was like that, but is it really worth it?

I can tell you right now that I wouldn't like to leave everything aside and just go for one week in London, for example. Not to mention the work and time you have to spend preparing prior to that: think about a subject that might interest people, do a nice presentation, buy a ticket, book a hotel room and go through the stress of travelling 9 hours just to present to a bunch of people interested in QA. Yeah, I agree, there is the satisfaction that somebody looks-up at you, asks you questions, you feel important to share your knowledge.

That is cool, I know the feeling, but really, how much more there is to say about QA?

In my opinion, QA can be reduced to a few sentences:
- test if you have a budget
- test intelligently if you have a bigger budget
- be prepared to give a QA status that will emphasize how well you successfully implemented with a limited budget
- people care only up to a point about QA, as long as the application works in production it doesn't matter if you had 30 defects or 100 defects.
- does anybody care that the application sucks? NO. People will continue to use it the way they can.
- does anybody care if I get frustrated while I use this application? NO.
Because in the end we had a successful implementation. And that's all there is about QA.