Because I was involved with CMM in the early 1990's, I've always thought of S(QA) as being about process adherence and process quality. Testing, in the "conformance to spec" way of thinking is more like quality control, and is about product quality. I know that there are many testers who rail against the conformance to spec thing, and see their role as more broad. Please read on.
However, since we are all more sane now, and people are realising that we're all responsible for quality, and we all would rather do it by "building the right thing" and "building the thing right" etc., it seems to me that everybody involved in software development is on the QA team.
In addition, I've always viewed Agile Methods as both risk management and quality assurance techniques. The quality assurance comes from the short production cycles and the inspect and adapt cycles.
Regards,
Lance
--- In agile-testing@yahoogroups.com, Malcolm Anderson <malcolm.b.anderson@...> wrote:
>
> Lisa's thread about the value of testers on an agile team made me think
> about an experience I had with someone who came to us as "Quality
> Assurance."
>
> Prior to this experience QA was (in my mind) the group that put thought to
> testing, and how to test.
>
> What I learned over a very painful year was that this individual believed
> that QA was there to write documentation about something called "quality."
>
> When we asked this person to do testing they would say (rather indignantly)
> "I am not a Tester, I do QA."
>
> Clearly this person believed that being a "Tester" was a step down.
>
> That was my first and only experience with this QA - Tester dichotomy. I
> have to assume that QA is a useful function in a waterfall organization.
>
> Can anyone else shed some light on this QA - Tester split?
>
> Thanks
>
> --
>
> Malcolm Anderson
> Scrum Coach & Agile Engineer
> http://www.PragmaticAgility.com/blog
>
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