Blog 3: Costly Decisions

Any organization is represented by its top leaders. People visualize the company as a whole in the way it's leaders act and react. Leaders also play a vital role in whether people inside the company like working. When a leader takes a bad step and realizes it too late to make amendments, it can only mean one thing: DISASTER.

In my previous organization, the Director of Quality Assurance, took a decision to implement an automation framework in the company. He got the budget allocated for it, made people develop it and then made everyone in the firm use it. Making use of his position, he compelled people to implement it in their projects no matter what.

After learning about strategy development I think I can now analyse this situation:

1. How valuable is the resource: By the time I quit my job, this project, after operating for 5 years had surpassed its originally allocated limit. It was in heavy use all over the company in almost all the projects. There was no client demanding this automation script but was forcibly asked to adopt it. Clients agreed to it denying to pay for it. Basically it was costing the company top dollars and not generating a single dime.

2. Is this resource unique: Had it been, it would have helped a lot. But Google has an automation framework named Selenium. This framework makes use of it. It didn't have all features implemented either. Google has been running Selenium since 2004. If you start a project in 2010 and use the free Selenium web-driver and expect to chase it, you are never gonna catch it. So, there are many many features yet to be implemented. Every other company uses Selenium or other proprietary frameworks which have existed for long. So, this resource is not at all unique and in no way will ever be.

3. Is the resource easy to imitate: This is actually a tricky question. Well first of all nobody would wanna do it because there is no problem with Google's selenium framework which is currently the front runner in automation framework. Secondly, this framework is so complicated to implement and would never be able to compete with Selenium since it is using it. So, it's not easy to imitate and lacks so many features already on offer for free by Google that nobody would want to implement it.

4. Is the organization positioned to exploit it: Short answer NO. First of all, the framework uses Selenium which is free and open-source. So, you cannot sell it. Secondly, nobody would buy a framework which lacks features already on offer by Google and that too free of cost. Thirdly, the organization cannot sell it to their clients either since they aren't demanding for it. The only way to provide it is free of cost.

I have been an Associate, Automation Quality Assurance, and according to my colleague's and senior employee's feedback, it's a complete disaster. People have been quitting the company after struggling to try and stay away from the career destroying framework. All complaints are being drowned by using the position and power. Overall, it's only time before all hell breaks loose.