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QA and QE A CodeScience Perspective

The document discusses the roles of Quality Assurance (QA) and Quality Engineering (QE) at CodeScience, highlighting their distinct yet complementary functions in the Agile development process. QA focuses on maintaining product quality through planning and execution, while QE automates testing to enhance efficiency and reduce manual efforts. Understanding the differences between these roles is crucial for effective project implementation and ensuring high-quality product delivery.

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9 views5 pages

QA and QE A CodeScience Perspective

The document discusses the roles of Quality Assurance (QA) and Quality Engineering (QE) at CodeScience, highlighting their distinct yet complementary functions in the Agile development process. QA focuses on maintaining product quality through planning and execution, while QE automates testing to enhance efficiency and reduce manual efforts. Understanding the differences between these roles is crucial for effective project implementation and ensuring high-quality product delivery.

Uploaded by

user99.wilfred
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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QA and QE: A
CodeScience Perspective
Numerous articles, blog posts, and videos have been
written on the subject of QA (Quality Assurance or
Quality Analysts) vs QE (Quality Engineers) and the many
other Quality roles that exist. However, many of our
clients and prospects find the overlap and differences
between these roles confusing or unclear. We share the
CodeScience Quality journey to help explain them.

The most common roles we utilize at CodeScience are


the QA and QE. Although some may consider these roles
similar or even the same, we implement them as two
separate but complementary roles. Before we dive in, let
us define QA and QE per Codescience’s standards.

QA: Quality Analyst – one who ensures/maintains the


quality of a product by executing on CodeScience’s
quality procedures.

QE: Quality Engineer – one who automates quality


procedures to minimize manual testing efforts.

How Agile Has Transformed the Role of


a QA
The traditional waterfall methodology implemented the
QA role as reactive — detecting bugs, measuring,
documenting, and reporting findings and presenting the
impact to the development team. The Agile framework
transformed the focus of this role, in concert with the
new QE role, into defect prevention — making the role
more proactive and instilling quality into software
development process from the beginning of the product
development lifecycle.

The work of QA and QE may vary from client to client,


between projects and project phases.

Same Goal, Different Focus


While the end goal of a quality product is the same for
both roles, the focus of the QA and QE are different. The
QA role focuses on delivering a quality solution through
planning and executing on the quality standards. Where
the QE focuses on automating manual, repeatable tasks
to make the process more efficient and less error-prone.

In the Agile development process, the role of the QA


starts when planning starts. The QA role is needed in
every phase of the product development lifecycle and is
responsible for:

Creating test plans, sprint planning, release


planning, and participating in ceremonies as the
testing subject matter expert.
Backlog Management — creating and grooming
stories by identifying missing Acceptance Criteria
and edge cases.
Communicating the testing status during daily stand-
ups and executing functional tests when a story is
developed.
Testing both functionality and behavior as well as
continuously documenting bugs and working closely
with developers during retest and issues finding
phases.
Identifying regression test cases for the application,
browser related test cases, mobile test cases, UX,
performance, and security test cases.
Working with the client team — providing test steps
for acceptance testing, analyzing and coordinating
issues found through testing, and classifying them
as bugs or enhancements.
Manually setting up environments.

The QE role, on the other hand, works closely with the


QA or the Product Owner (PO) to:

Identify the test cases that are executed repeatedly.


Identify the tests that involve multiple browsers,
devices, and different versions of operating
systems.
Identify end-to-end test cases.
Automate the identified test cases with the help of
the automation testing frameworks/tools.
Address most of the challenges of manual testing.
Automate the tests to be executed in the continuous
integration (CI) process when builds are deployed in
various environments.
Identify bugs as a result of automation test failures
and re-run tests after resolution of failures.

A QE is needed in every project where there is


continuous implementation of functionality, where the
previous implementation is regularly regression tested,
and where automated test scripts are included in the
“definition of done”.

The Challenges of Manual-Only Testing


If you’re curious as to why you would automate your
testing, we’ve discussed the challenges around manual-
only testing and why automation is important for your
project in our post — How Automated Testing Can
Streamline Your Build.

Here are 3 points for your consideration.

Time: Comprehensive tests take days — if not weeks


— depending on the size of the test suite and
complexity of tests. Time is the constraint.
Repetitiveness: Repetitive smoke tests and
regression tests — which sometimes occur up to 2
or 3 times during the release/delivery process — can
take a significant amount of time when timelines are
critical.
Speed: Test automation increases speed in the
delivery process. This is especially true when a
hotfix is needed. If it’s not possible to do a full
manual regression in the shorter timeline,
automation can make it possible.

Working Together Builds Quality


Products
Traditional waterfall development used the QA role as a
mere detection mechanism for defects prior to
deployment. In the Agile world and at CodeScience, the
QA and QE roles work hand in hand from the start of the
development lifecycle to embed quality into the
development process. This ultimately transforms the end
product’s quality and shortens the user acceptance
testing (UAT) cycle.

It is critical to understand the difference between the QA


and QE roles in order to effectively implement them on
projects. Each role should be compared with the goals of
a project for best fit. The key to success when
implementing a QA and QE together is that they support
each other by adhering to the highest quality standards,
with the delivery of a quality product.

Thank you so much to Carla Kossally of our Expert


Services team for reviewing the post and for the valuable
suggestions!

CodeScience has the experience to get your app to


market fast. Learn more at
www.codescience.com/services.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:


R A DHIK A M A N N E

R E L AT E D P O STS

CodeScience,

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