There have been numerous debates on the topic of Testing v/s Quality Assurance (QA). Like: QA has bigger scope than testing, testing is more effective, QA helps find issues earlier, etc.
As per my understanding the commonly accepted argument is that ‘testing’ is something that comes at the end of the SDLC. It is the process of executing manual or automated, functional or non-functional testing. It is (mostly) conducted by specialised testers. Testers may be involved in the process from beginning, they might or might not have much input to make, but the actual testing only occurs at the end. If the development is iterative then multiple iterations of testing. But the bottom line is that testing always occurs at the end when developer passes on the piece of development to tester for testing.
Whereas QA is from the day the project is initiated. Depending on your environment, if there is lot of ‘business as usual’ (BAU) or maintenance stuff happening then I would like to say it is the on going process.
In our Applications team we believe in ‘QA’. We understand the importance of it and the advantages of implementing it. In order to achieve that the QA team recently released the new QA process where we have ‘quality control’ measures at various stages of SDLC. Various roles within the team have been given the responsibility of QA at different stages. An example of which is that Solutions Analysts (SA) are responsible to QA a Business Analyst’s (BA) work and a Developer will QA a SA’s work. As in the person next in the SDLC process QAs the work of the person before him.
Some of the advantages of QA are:
- Transperancy
- Early involvement of people
- Early feedback
- Find issues early
- Lesser cost of fixing issues
- Quicker delivery
Below is the QA process that we have come up with. It is just a high-level representation of the actual process, which is like 38 steps long. This process has inputs from the QA team, BA team, all the managers of our group and the Project Management office.
I am a big fan of Exploratory Testing and I certainly agree with the author (of the following post) that it requires lot of self-discipline. Whether it is while planning, testing, analyzing or logging issues.
The only issue I have with exploratory testing is business continuity – what happens if someone else after you needs to come and do the job? I’d say the the tester should maintain at least some documentation to allow that.
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Some people when you say you do exploratory testing immediately think ad-hoc testing. I suppose because there is less emphasis on obvious structure and at the end there is little tangible evidence of testing performed.
But in my view, there’s a lot more to exploratory testing than wandering aimlessly through an application looking for bugs. As well as mentally challenging, it requires a lot of self-discipline.
Here’s why you need self discipline:
1) You need self-discipline to test the parts that are not as interesting to you, or not as fun. It’s easy to overlook and ‘forget’ them when other parts are more appealing.
2) You need self discipline to give each bug the time it deserves before racing off to find new ones. Time to analyze, examine and understand. Only then, can you go and look for new bugs.
3) You need self-discipline to write up bugs when they are found, instead of leaving them until later or when you feel like it.
In my view, in exploratory testing, as in many other ways of testing, its the mission and the stakeholder that count and their needs must come first.
What’s different is that instead of relying on documents and reports, you need discipline to make sure you meet those goals.
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My 2 (milli)Seconds of Fame 
I earlier blogged about Windows 7 launch. To quite a few people’s surprise I managed to wake up early and made it to Britomart, Auckland at 7:00 am sharp. Didn’t manage to win any prize but got some video footage on TVNZ news. Enjoy…
Checkout the above video between 26 and 28 seconds.
I had earlier posted about soon to be released Windows 7 and the hoopla hoo about it.
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Well, it is almost here – just 3 more days to go.
In the meantime I have just found out about HP will be giving out a free PC with Windows 7 every 10 minutes between 7:00 and 8:15 am. At Queen Elizabeth Square, Britomart on 22nd October 2009, 7am – 8.15am
Be there to stand a chance to win one.
Update: Just found out that it is a combined presentation from Microsoft NZ and HP. Here is the Facebook invite for your reference: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=157122119129
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Earlier today jut exchanged few messages with Michael Bolton over Twitter. Here is a quick tip from him on when to automate the testing for a ‘broken link’.
There are certain skills which you are born with, then are skills which you can and may want to develop.
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The most important skill I think is the skill of using the correct skill in the correct situation.
The skill that I admire in some people is the skill to ’shut up and listen’. Seems like they’ve got all the patience in the world, they will never stop the opposite from ranting and just listen to them. Finally, when that person has finished, they would respond if necessary or sometimes not respond and at all and just respond to it with a smile on their face. I really find that commendable and personlly tough to achieve that.
I think it also comes with age, experience, position and various other factors that occur in ones life. Anyways, here are links to some webpages which talk about various personal skills:
1 – Seven Essential Teamwork Skills (My fav.)
2 – 15 Personal Skills You Need on the Job
3 – Personal Skills
So which skill are you trying to work/improve on?
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