The myth of Software Quality Assurance

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I have the opportunity to interview every so often, and I like finding out what the candidate knows about the work they do. For this reason I almost always ask the candidate to tell me the difference between Quality Assurance (QA) and Quality Control (QC). At first I was astounded at the responses. I felt as though, I had asked the candidate to list all the heads of states for Zimbabwe since its inception. Now these candidates are usually those with many years of experience, you know 10+ and considered senior testers. I felt safe asking because, I thought if you are working in an industry for more than a couple of years, you should know something basic about your job; sadly I was wrong.

I have a good friend who tells me that I am anal about the difference between QA & QC and she is probably right. But in interviewing these candidates I have found that there are unlimited views on the differences. I have been told that QA – “is following scenarios assuring quality”; “measuring the amount of quality”; “that it is analysis or detailed or in-depth validation of software”; “the job is to find defects”.

For QC it goes something like this – “there’s no difference”; “where faults are found in acceptable ranges”; “it’s an evaluation against standard”; “that QC is more comprehensive than QA”; “it is the job of engineering, development, and design”; “that quality is the composition for a product line”; “that QC is the verification of the end product”; “it is the flow through the application without errors”.

It is amazing that so many of us in the software testing business don’t know what we do. Are we QA or are we QC? Many testers junior or senior do not know. I believe it because the majority of companies we work for do not understand what we do as well as they should. Consequently testers are placed in a department titled QA, and the testers test the software. Go to any Software Quality Assurance (SQA) group and what is the main topic of their conversations it is testing, improving testing, automated testing, manual testing, etc.

Yes, I have a point. My point is that QA is not testing. QA is the assurance of quality and QC is the control of quality. Let me explain, I believe, as many of you, that you cannot test quality into any product. Quality comes when there are processes which are followed and the process are reviewed, followed by some analysis on the process to correct any flaws found in them, and then the flawed process is modified to produce a better product. This is QA; it is a short but simple answer. QA has nothing to do with testing. On the other hand, testing is QC. QC is the validation of the product to a set of specifications, requirements, or standards. The validation is accomplished through the action of testing the product against the requirements. We all work for the QA department yet we do QC work and we perpetuate the myth by calling ourselves “QA”. I have been corrected many times by testers which state very forcefully that “we are QA”.

My stand is that we who test any software product are actually in the business of QC – quality control; in that we focus on controlling the quality of the product, once it is delivered to us. We are not QA, for we assure nothing, we just validate the requirements have been met and report any deviation in the product from them.