Despite each being quite a distinct practice, playing their respective roles in ensuring technology solutions meet and surpass expectations, they are frequently spoken of in the same breath and often viewed as interchangeable. The conflation of these discrete endeavours is somewhat forgivable given that they complement each other and are, to a great extent, inextricably linked within the domain of technology product and service delivery. However, to understand the delineation between what it is to ‘Quality Assure’ and what it is to ‘Test’ is also to unlock them as individual forces in the endeavour to achieve high-end results.

This ‘QA vs. Testing’ series aims to reinforce the understanding of these two disciplines and demystify their intricacies. It offers insights into the unique contributions of QA and Testing, as well as their interplay and collective impact on the solutions delivery lifecycle.

Quality Assurance is like the guardian of solution development, ensuring that every phase of creating an operational or information technology product adheres to predefined standards and processes to achieve the highest quality. Think of QA as the strategic planning and proactive process that integrates into the entire development lifecycle – from initial design to deployment. It’s about setting up a reliable, efficient framework within which every team member knows the quality benchmarks they need to meet and the steps they should take to get there.

For example – Imagine you’re planning a journey through uncharted territories. Quality Assurance is your comprehensive travel plan, ensuring you’ve got the right maps, equipment, and guidelines to reach your destination safely and efficiently without unnecessary detours or delays. It’s about preventing problems before they occur, ensuring the path to your final product is as smooth and straight as possible.

On the flip side, Testing is the highly focused detective work that comes into play once the product has been developed, serving as a critical checkpoint before it goes public. It’s a reactive process that involves putting your solution through a series of experiments and scenarios to uncover any defects, bugs, or areas that don’t meet the quality standards set out by the QA process. Testing is about validation and verification, ensuring the product works as intended and meets the users’ needs and expectations.

To use the journeying analogy again, Testing is when you actually start travelling and begin to encounter unexpected obstacles. It’s the process of navigating those obstacles, identifying where you might have gone off course, and understanding what needs to be fixed or improved to ensure a successful journey. It’s the essential step that ensures your preparations (QA) effectively translate into a safe and enjoyable travel experience (a high-quality technology product).

Quality Assurance (QA) and Testing are easily confused with each other due to their closely related goals, overlapping activities, and the common objective of ensuring the delivery of high-quality OT/IT products and services. However, fundamental differences in approaches and focus can often become blurred and lost in their amalgamation.

Here are some reasons why QA and Testing are easily conflated:

1. Scope and Focus

QA (Quality Assurance): Focuses on preventing defects in the solutions development process and ensuring product quality through establishing processes and standards. QA is process-oriented and is concerned with the entire development lifecycle.

Testing: Focuses on identifying defects in the actual hardware and software by executing the solution under controlled conditions. Testing is product-oriented and is concerned with the verification of specific functionalities.

2. Objective and Goals

QA: Aims to improve and optimise the development and testing processes to prevent defects before they occur. The goal is to ensure that the processes and methods used to manage and create deliverables are effective and efficient as per the quality standards.

Testing: Aims to find and report bugs. The goal is to ensure that a solution’s features and properties solve the problem presented by the requirements and to identify any defects that need to be fixed.

3. Activities and Methods

QA: Involves activities related to the implementation of standards, procedures, and processes. These can include process audits, methodologies improvement, and quality management systems.

Testing: Involves activities such as test case creation, test execution, defect reporting, and test result analysis. Methods can vary from manual Testing to Automated Testing, including unit, integration, system, and acceptance testing.

4. Responsibility

QA: Is generally seen as a company-wide responsibility that involves everyone in the development process. QA aims to create a quality culture where quality is embedded in every step of the development process.

Testing: Is typically the responsibility of a specific team or individual testers. Their primary role is to execute the tests and ensure the product functionality meets the requirements specified.

5. Timing and Integration

QA: Is an ongoing activity that starts at the beginning of the project and continues through its lifecycle (pit stops or checkpoints during the journey). It is integrated into every phase of the solutions delivery process.

Testing: Usually occurs after a particular development phase is completed and can be seen as a subset of the QA activities. It is, therefore, concentrated in specific stages, primarily during and after the coding phase.

Since Testing is clearly a discipline within the broader practice of QA, it is easy to see why most references to QA are translated as simply the practice of Testing. However, this is a basic flaw in thinking because it overlooks the comprehensive approach that QA brings to ensuring quality throughout the entire solution development lifecycle.