Comments on: "Don’t call me a QA!"

By: ColoradoTester

ColoradoTester — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:15:42 +0000

Yeah – I find the term QA problematic for several reasons. Unfortunately, it is embedded in the parlance of clients, organizations, and teams. Trying to drop the term unilaterally means having to forever explain why you don’t like the term, what it means, what’s a better term, etc. The fact is, most clients show surprisingly little interest in confronting this semantic conundrum. “We’ve always called it QA.” said one project manager I spoke with, “Hell, I don’t even know what that stands for. Hey, did Jerry bring bagels this morning?”

In addition, there were a few months back in 2005 when some people thought that software “QA” could make a difference by actually looking at development practices and finding ways to make improvements. When I think back on the dozens of emails, test plans, and other artifacts many of us produced in an effort to pursue this concept of helping “assure quality”, it makes me smile, in a forced, painful way.

How about all those meetings we attended, prepared to unveil some new idea/plan/procedure about improving requirements, traceability, unit testing, or some other aspect of the development process (You remember, the plan you worked on until two in the morning?) only to receive the standard introduction for any idea that originates with testers: “OK, I guess that’s about it. Thanks everybody. Oh…I’m sorry, I guess QA had something they wanted to talk about?”

By: Jester tester

Jester tester — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 03:51:03 +0000

Hi, I’m from the Philippines and I work as tester too… I also have the same rant like you regarding Testers being called as QA by other people. But here in our company, we are called testers and there’s no problem but when I encounter other developers and even testers from other companies, when they ask me, “what’s your role in you team?”, I say “Software tester”, then they tell me, “Ahhh, QA!”.

Ahhh, a common variant of Selective hearing. Sadly, as yet I have found no known universal cure.

By: Rachel

Rachel — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 11:54:06 +0000

Is the whole world confused by the difference? Testing and QA are NOT the same.

Testing is about exercising the system to figure out whether it can be broken too easily, whether it achieves the things the customer wanted and whether it meets the standards set by the company.

Quality Assurance, is ALL about whether, during the process of producing whatever it is, everyone involved followed the processes and procedures defined properly in order to have confidence that the quality required has been achieved.

They are different things, utilising different skills (and different people), with the same objective – to ensure a system is produced that achieves the desired level of quality.

Many companies employ neither, a few employ both, I suspect the majority employ testers, but think they have achieved both things by so doing.

Hi Rachel, Thanks for leaving a comment. I suspect the majority employ testers too.

By: Suzanne

Suzanne — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 19:56:54 +0000

I will never call you a QA. To me, QA is taking random samples of service or product to determine an overall measure of standards compliance. It has nothing to do with testing. I would sooner be called a code monkey for all my days than refer to testing as QA. It just doesn’t fit. Even though I am in the minority, I won’t be swayed!

Thanks Suzanne, hopefully others will emulate your sway free stance.

By: shrini Kulkarni

shrini Kulkarni — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 10:44:43 +0000

I wrote about it, here

http://shrinik.blogspot.com/2006/12/how-can-software-tester-shoot-on.html

Shrini

Thanks for the pointer Shrini.

By: Phil Kirkham

Phil Kirkham — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 09:22:05 +0000

Mouse mats and t-shirts aren’t enough, we have to start getting really evil

I’ll add your rant to the ever growing list…

http://expectedresults.blogspot.com/2008/09/testing-cliches.html

An old rant, but an important one methinks. Now I too can sit in such rarefied company.

By: marijane

marijane — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 03:46:41 +0000

I started out as a Software Test Engineer but my official title at my current employer is QA Engineer. Thankfully, my teammates and I usually refer to ourselves as testers despite the title. When it comes up, I tell everyone QA stands for "Quality Assessment", and then they get a diatribe about how it is impossible for a test team to "assure quality". If the discussion is happening online, I usually include a link to Elizabeth Hendrickson's You Can't Test the Wings Back on an Airplane. Thanks for leaving the comment Marijane and the link.

By: QA or…? « MGilly’s QA Blog

QA or…? « MGilly’s QA Blog — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 01:18:22 +0000

[...] Here is an interesting post on Evil Tester called, “Don’t call me a QA!” Fortuitous, [...]

Mary has crafted some alternative definitions in case you want to change from QA.