Why is Quality Engineering Needed to Modernize Quality Assurance?

Quality is the cornerstone on which the entire edifice of digital transformation rests. To sustain in the competitive business landscape enterprises have to posit quality assurance at the core of their software development lifecycle. They should help build a collaborative team culture and a customer-centric mindset to make a holistic transition to digital transformation. However, not everything is hunky-dory when it comes to implementing quality assurance in the value stream. With business considerations for productivity and faster time to market taking precedence over customer experience, in many cases, quality assurance needs a makeover of sorts. In the DevOps scheme of things where Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery of software applications are the mandates, modernizing quality assurance with software quality engineering services becomes critical.

To keep up with the requirements of extremely demanding customers, enterprises should focus on developing a flexible QA framework, reinvent QA, and fundamentally enhance the customer service experience. Also, the approach in any DevOps-based SDLC should be to achieve the right quality the first time using tools such as AI and automation, among others.

The shift towards Quality Engineering (QE)

In a dynamically changing world where the quality of software applications decides the success of enterprises and the delivery of the right outcomes as envisaged during the planning stage, enterprise quality engineering holds the key. It helps to improve decision-making and optimize the development lifecycle through actionable outcomes and contextual insights. Based on the principles of intelligence, integration, and automation, digital quality engineering can ensure the quality of the software application remains top-notch right from the beginning.

A quality engineering strategy should incorporate user advocacy and new tools and technologies to pre-empt any quality issues or vulnerabilities from getting into the value chain. To ensure ‘quality’ forms part of the build right from the planning stage, quality engineers should be involved in the technical discussions with the development team. This would give them insights into all phases of software development and helps them identify errors or glitches at the inception.

In case stakeholders understand the value of quality engineering and its role in transforming the software build, team culture, and the entire SDLC, they help to implement the same in the value chain. However, should enterprises view QA as a mere adjunct to the process of software development, then quality becomes a casualty at the altar of productivity and profit-making. Ironically, for such enterprises, the lack of quality in their software applications can backfire and hit their bottom line. Further, the transition from quality assurance to digital quality engineering can take a hit if other teams are not sensitized about the objectives of QE.

Challenges to modernize QA with QE

In traditional QA, quality testing of the software build is the sole prerogative of the testing team. The QA team is responsible for writing, executing, and maintaining test codes as and when it receives the software build for testing. However, when it comes to modernizing QA with software quality engineering services, the test codes are made accessible to the entire software development and delivery team by placing them in a central repository. The modern QE approach is to consult developers at every step of the build process and make QA everyone’s responsibility.

In large enterprises, implementing the quality engineering strategy needs the consent of every stakeholder, the ability to employ change management, and prove its potential for success, and the ability to generate business value. Besides, the QA management’s role and responsibilities change as they get involved in the task of ensuring a seamless collaboration across teams.

Driving QE in SDLC

Identifying what jobs to automate is the key aspect of implementing QE instead of how much to automate. It is more about focusing on automating the right things and less on the degree of automation. After becoming part of the development process as an embedded entity, the QE team should not triage its activities based on the inputs and orders received from the development team. For if the same is done then the process is bound to breed inefficiency instead of ensuring the streamlining of work.

Again, in large enterprises, delivering quality engineering solutions should be about building a centralized enterprise test automation platform. The platform should be accessible to multiple teams involved in the SDLC and allows them to build test automation for various applications covering different tools and technologies.

Conclusion

Modernizing quality assurance by involving independent quality engineering services should deliver business value for enterprises. The process should make quality everyone’s responsibility and make teams accountable for glitches in their turf. Hence, instead of virtue signaling, QE should enable every team in the SDLC to become a stakeholder in making the software application qualitatively superior.

James Daniel is a software Tech enthusiastic & works at Cigniti Technologies I'm having a great understanding of today's software testing quality