The eternal QA vs. Testing debate
Submitted by Antony Marcano on Thu, 28/10/2004 - 07:08.
general software testing
[textile]In "I'm a Tester, Jim, not a QA Engineer!":http://blogs.msdn.com/micahel/archive/2004/10/27/248564.aspx Micahel, a.k.a. the "Braidy Tester" covers an issue that I recently covered in my post "QA, Testing... what's the difference":http://www.testingreflections.com/node/view/827
My post caused something of a protracted and passionate discussion on the agile-testing yahoogroups mailing list including contributions from Bret Pettichord, Brian Marick, Michael Bolton, Lisa Crispin and many more...
Everyone was in agreement... Software Testing is NOT Quality Assurance... the discussion centred around the reasons why people use QA to refer to Testing...
The reasons suggested ranged from plain ol' ignorance (as I suggest in my reference to the "Quality & s-e-x" analogy) through to deceptive "ticks in boxes" so the team can say "were doing QA so don't need to worry about quality any more" through to delusions of grandure...
Every time we clarify the purpose of QA & Testing we are correcting a misconception and addressing an underlying issue...
* If the tester is ignorant about the difference between QA and Testing.... what else are they ignorant about?
* If the team wants a tick in the box for quality, what short-cuts are they trying to cover-up in the rest of the development process?
* If the Tester has delusions of grandure, do they have the right mind-set to be an effective tester or even constructive in communicating bugs to the project team, and particularly the developers?
Johnathan Kohl made a comment on Micahel's post, referring to an "article on QA vs. Testing from Bret Pettichord":http://www.stickyminds.com/sitewide.asp?ObjectId=3543&Function=DETAILBROWSE&ObjectType=COL
which contains similar messages.
This is an issue that has been there for the last 10 years that I have been in software testing and I imagine will be there for the next 10 years... with the relatively recent increase in the "cool-factor" of testing, I hope there will be more people taking an interest in understanding it and a lot fewer people displaying their ignorance on the issue by calling themselves "QA Testers" or "QA Engineers" when in fact they are "Software Testers" - because that's what you are! You are a Software Tester, a highly specialised knowledge worker.... don't shy away from it... be proud of it!
You can also read "Micahel's post on testingReflections":http://www.testingreflections.com/node/view/1004
My post caused something of a protracted and passionate discussion on the agile-testing yahoogroups mailing list including contributions from Bret Pettichord, Brian Marick, Michael Bolton, Lisa Crispin and many more...
Everyone was in agreement... Software Testing is NOT Quality Assurance... the discussion centred around the reasons why people use QA to refer to Testing...
The reasons suggested ranged from plain ol' ignorance (as I suggest in my reference to the "Quality & s-e-x" analogy) through to deceptive "ticks in boxes" so the team can say "were doing QA so don't need to worry about quality any more" through to delusions of grandure...
Every time we clarify the purpose of QA & Testing we are correcting a misconception and addressing an underlying issue...
* If the tester is ignorant about the difference between QA and Testing.... what else are they ignorant about?
* If the team wants a tick in the box for quality, what short-cuts are they trying to cover-up in the rest of the development process?
* If the Tester has delusions of grandure, do they have the right mind-set to be an effective tester or even constructive in communicating bugs to the project team, and particularly the developers?
Johnathan Kohl made a comment on Micahel's post, referring to an "article on QA vs. Testing from Bret Pettichord":http://www.stickyminds.com/sitewide.asp?ObjectId=3543&Function=DETAILBROWSE&ObjectType=COL
which contains similar messages.
This is an issue that has been there for the last 10 years that I have been in software testing and I imagine will be there for the next 10 years... with the relatively recent increase in the "cool-factor" of testing, I hope there will be more people taking an interest in understanding it and a lot fewer people displaying their ignorance on the issue by calling themselves "QA Testers" or "QA Engineers" when in fact they are "Software Testers" - because that's what you are! You are a Software Tester, a highly specialised knowledge worker.... don't shy away from it... be proud of it!
You can also read "Micahel's post on testingReflections":http://www.testingreflections.com/node/view/1004