qa or test? does it matter? you bet it does!
DESCRIPTION
QA or Test? Does it Matter? You Bet it Does! Some of us are called QA. Some of us are called test. Whether we are managers, analysts, engineers, whatever, does it really matter what our first “name” is? Yes. It matters, because it sets expectations in the rest of the organization. When we call ourselves “quality assurance,” we set ourselves up for assuring product quality. When we call ourselves testers, we set ourselves up for testing. How can we live up to those expectations—whatever they are? What happens if we don’t? These are the slides from Johanna Rothman's keynote from Belgium Testing Days 2012.TRANSCRIPT
QA or Test? Does it Matter?You Bet it Does!
Johanna RothmanNew: Manage Your Project Portfolio: Increase Your Capacity and Finish More Projects
@johannarothmanwww.jrothman.com
© 2012 Johanna Rothman
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.
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© 2012 Johanna Rothman3
© 2012 Johanna Rothman
Gather Some Data
How many of you have
“Quality” in your job titles?
How many of you measure
for process improvement?
How many of you do
process improvement?
How many of you have
“Test” in your job titles?
How many of you measure
for process improvement?
How many of you do
process improvement?
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© 2012 Johanna Rothman
Feedback is What Matters
Does your work provide feedback to the project team
and the business people for release decisions?
Does the project team obtain sufficient feedback about
their work to be able to improve it?
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© 2012 Johanna Rothman
Things That Don’t “Matter”
Anyone in the project team making the release decision
Business decision
Anyone in the project team owning defect data
Because it’s a lagging indicator
Multi-dimensional project data matters
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© 2012 Johanna Rothman
What is Software?
Design activity
Test and development need to partner
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© 2012 Johanna Rothman
Is It Possible to Assure Software Product Quality?
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© 2012 Johanna Rothman
Test and Dev Form a Partnership
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“We are all developers; some of our code ships, some
stays”
© 2012 Johanna Rothman
Real Quality Assurance
More like Internal Affairs
Audit the process
Don’t do the work
Separate from Test
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© 2012 Johanna Rothman
Heresy
Process improvement needs to be owned by the people
doing the work, not by an outside group
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© 2012 Johanna Rothman
Our Names Set Other People’s Expectations of Us
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© 2012 Johanna Rothman
Expectations All the Way Up/Down the Organization:
Who owns product quality if the testers are called “QA”?
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© 2012 Johanna Rothman
Look at the Project Pyramid
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© 2012 Johanna Rothman
Everything About a Project is a Business Decision
Time to Release is a business decision
Feature set is a business decision
Defect levels are a business decision
...
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© 2012 Johanna Rothman
Product Quality is a Business Decision
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© 2012 Johanna Rothman
Quality Depends on Market Position
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© 2012 Johanna Rothman
Product Complexity Leads to Different Product Quality Decisions
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© 2012 Johanna Rothman
Who is Responsible for Quality?
Senior management
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© 2012 Johanna Rothman
What Do You Think You Should Be Called, Now?
What does the organization expect of you?
What do you expect of yourself?
How congruent are those expectations?
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© 2012 Johanna Rothman
References and More Reading
Tons more on jrothman.com
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I’ll be putting these slides up on slideshare.
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