Quality assurance testing plays a pivotal role in developing the software cycle. It is responsible for the quality of products achieving high standards of the business. As a result, you are advised to understand different ways to perform QA testing so that your productivity can be boosted. The article below will help you with that.
1. What is quality assurance testing meaning
QA testing refers to a procedure used to assure the quality of products or services provided by an organization to customers. Quality assurance testing focuses on upgrading software development and increasing productivity and efficiency to the defined quality standards for software products.
2. The cycle of quality assurance testing
The quality assurance method includes a determined process called PDCA or Deming cycle, and it has 4 phases that are Plan, Do, Check, and Act. In order to assure the cycles of an organization are assessed and upgraded, those phases need repeating.
QA testing cycle
Plan: Organizations draw up plans and establish objectives related to cycles and determine essential cycles to provide high-quality finished products.
Do: Develop and test cycles and changes in terms of in-process implementation.
Check: Supervise, modify the cycles, and perform quality assurance testing to make sure that it can meet the demands determined in advance.
Act: QA software testers perform the necessary tasks for process improvement.
3. Advantages and disadvantages of quality assurance testing
There are both benefits and drawbacks to software quality assurance.
Pros and cons of software quality assurance
3.1. Advantages
On the one hand, the QA testing process might be beneficial to a certain extent.
Time-saving: Time is reduced significantly compared to conventional manual testing because of advanced automation capabilities.
Improve internal productivity: Internal productivity is increased thanks to the decline in demand for labor.
The risks of revenue loss which result from product defects is reduced when launching or afterward.
Confidence in product capabilities can be enhanced as a result of the fact that quality assurance testing identifies and rectifies errors before a product is launched.
Establish credibility and enhance trust from customers because high-quality, superior, and effective products are provided by software quality assurance.
3.2. Disadvantages
On the other hand, software quality assurance might be detrimental for several reasons.
Resources can be intensive because it depends largely on lifelong experienced and well-trained QA software testers and engineers despite the fact that finished products are high quality and superior thanks to these resources.
Higher costs: It is necessary to invest in advanced quality assurance testing tools and comparatively professional and talented services because finished products will be high quality and more productive. However, it costs you a large sum of money.
Time-consuming: Despite the potential for longer go-to-market delays, the risk can be greatly reduced by hiring highly skilled QA personnel. This is because quality assurance testing procedures may need to be repeated to verify error-free operation. This can therefore result in a shorter time to market by utilizing highly effective QA techniques and specific technologies.
4. Quality assurance testing and Quality control testing comparison
Sometimes, QA testing and QC testing can be confusing to users. Therefore, we have made a comparison of QA testing and QC testing so that you get the right point of these two.
QA testing
QC testing
Quality assurance testing includes activities to assure and implement processes, procedures, and standards in the developed software testing content and requirements
Quality control/Tester includes activities to ensure that the testing of the software has met the requirements in the requirements document (ensures the detection of bugs/bugs in the software)
Focus on the process and sequence rather than managing the actual test on the system
Focus on actual testing on the software to detect bugs during system development
Quality assurance is a process driven
Quality control is product-oriented
The goal of software quality assurance testing is to prevent bugs in the software application to help improve the development and testing process
The goal of software quality control is to identify and detect defects during software application development
Not related to program execution, code
Concerning the execution of the program, code
Identify weaknesses in development processes for improvement
Identify errors that need to be fixed
This is a subset of the software development life cycle (SDLC)
Testing is a subset of Quality Control
Made before quality control
Performed only after the quality assurance testing is completed
5. Quality assurance testing job opportunities
Quality management staff plays an extremely vital role for businesses from technology enterprises, training, manufacturing, transportation, banking, or any other fields that need QA testing. Therefore, it can be said that the career opportunities in this profession are now very large.
5.1. Software quality assurance job description
There are a number of tasks that a QA software tester need to take on.
Quality assurance testing tasks
Make offers and detailed proposals, and outline the product development process to suit different projects.
Provide guidance documents for the whole team to agree on the same goal and ensure the quality assurance testing of the product.
Check and audit the implementation of the process to see if the departments are following the set process or not.
Remind the team of developers to follow the correct process.
Monitor and adjust the process to suit each requirement.
5.2. What skills does QA software tester need
To complete the QA job well, besides professional knowledge, a QA software tester need to hone some of the following soft skills.
QA software tester skills
Understand well CMMI, ISO, etc in the software to build process standards for the team.
Organizational, logical, and systematic skills to build a reasonable process, outline plans and assign tasks to each department of quality assurance testing.
Good communication skills to effectively convey information within the team.
Time management skills help QA staff easily monitor and track work progress.