Quality Assurance vs. Quality Control vs. Testing
What’s the Main Difference?
The terms quality assurance (QA),quality control (QC) and testing are often used interchangeably . Although each one are tightly linked, are part of quality management, and sometimes difficult to differentiate, they are far from being the same.
Quality assurance (QA), quality control (QC), and testing are terms the are often confused and therefore used interchangeably. This is mainly because they are interrelated aspect of key quality management, each of which ensures that outputs are of high quality and meet customer expectation.
Quality Assurance (QA)
Quality assurance is process oriented. It is all about preventing defects by ensuring the processes used to manage and create deliverables works. Not only does it work, but is consistently followed by the team. Moreover, QA is about engineering processes that assure quality is achieved in an effective and efficient way.
For instance, if a defect is found and fixed, there is no guaranteeing it won’t pop back up. The role of QA is to identify the process that allowed the error to occur and re-engineer the system so that these defects won’t appear for the second time. The QA process verifies that the product will continue to function as the customer expects.
Though QC is absolutely necessary, QA is perhaps more important. By the time you reach the QC stage, for instance, fixing bugs becomes an expensive issue. Because of that, focusing efforts on improved QA processes is one of the best investments an organization can make.
Quality Control (QC)
Quality control, alternatively, is product oriented. It is the function of software quality that determines the ending result is what was expected. Whereas QA is proactive, QC is reactive. QC detects bugs by inspecting and testing the product. This involves checking the product against a predetermined set of requirements and validating that the product meets those requirements.
QC testing is a function of software quality that checks that the project follows standards, processes, and procedures laid down, and that the project produces the required internal and external deliverables. The QC team’s job is to identify defects after a product is developed but before it is released. QC aims to identify (and correct) defects in the finished product. The main purpose of the quality control process is ensuring that the software product meets the actual requirements by testing and reviewing its functional and non-functional requirements.
Testing
Testing is a subset of QC. It is the process of executing a system in order to detect bugs in the product so that they get fixed. Testing is an integral part of QC as it helps demonstrate that the product runs the way it is expected and designed for.
To summarize, think of everything as an assembly line. QA can be thought of as the process to ensure the assembly line actually works, while QC is when the products coming off the assembly line are checked to verify they meet the required specifications.
Ultimately, both QA and QC are required for ensuring a successful product. When used together, they can help detect inefficient processes and identify bugs in the product. Moreover, QA and QC can help to develop and deliver a consistently high-quality product to your customers.
Quality for Success
One of the main reasons why many developers give software testing a miss is because it increases development time; however, that’s not entirely true. Although software testing might seem challenging initially, it only aids in ensuring quality and reliability of your product.
Three certain ways of ensuring top-notch quality is to carry out QA, QC and Testing: QA verifies that the processes used to manage and create deliverables are followed, and recognizes faults in the process, and QC ensures that the approaches, techniques, methods, and processes are followed in such a way that project deliverables meet the defined quality standards.
Therefore, software quality processes and delivering a quality product through QA, QC and Testing not only saves time and money, it mitigates risk and guarantees a competitive edge over rivals.
A Recipe for Success!!!
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