We’ve all heard that old chestnut being thrown around. What does it really mean? To me, it means achieving better results while using simpler or more efficient methods.

 A customer of ours has multiple Windows 7 migration projects underway and they began their pre-migration application testing using a manual process. They had a large group of resources sitting in the lab trying to install some of their applications on Windows 7. The results would then be documented and placed in a spreadsheet for future reference, and a new app would be tested and so on. At the end of their testing, they had a list of applications that would install on the new OS, and list that would not. This process took a few manual resources and  a significant number of weeks to complete for  just a couple of hundred apps. Apps that passed the install test were sent to UAT and apps that did not were given back to the app owners for further testing to determine what the issue was.

We could have told them the same thing in just a few days without tying up those resources in the lab. There are some activities that can take place before you begin your app testing that can shrink that burden down. Reducing your application portfolio through rationalization will help make life easier for your testers. Once you’ve done that, we can show you the vendor support information for your apps using AppRx and you’ll know right away which apps can go to UAT, and which will require further analysis or action. For those applications that need deeper testing, simply group them up and analyze them in the same place.

 We don’t remove the manual testers from the equation completely; instead we help them focus their efforts where they can deliver the most value. This significantly shortens the deployment time of your migration, and lowers your project costs. That’s working smarter, not harder.

Original post on http://futurestateit.com/2012/08/16/working-smarter-not-harder/