One of the biggest ways that people could leverage technologies more effectively is to use unit testing correctly. Most teams either don't utilize unit testing at all or use it far too much -- it's tough to find that "sweet spot" where the tests increase quality without hindering productivity. But if you're able to achieve that balance, you should be able to enjoy higher quality software with a lower cost of creation.
What is unit testing?
Before I go too much further, I feel like I should explain what "unit testing" actually is, because the term is misused quite frequently. Unit testing is the act of testing a small component, or unit, of your software application. Because the scope of each individual unit test is so limited, the only way to achieve it is to write code that tests your code, usually using a framework like NUnit or the Microsoft Testing Framework. A detailed description of how it works is out of the scope of today's post, but in a nutshell, unit testing is when a developer writes a test method that calls "real" code and lets him or her know when the actual results don't match the expected results.
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