QA,QC and Testing

Many people and organizations are confused about QA, QC and Testing. They are closely related but they have significant difference. All these are necessary to effectively manage the development and maintain the software product and deliver the successful software product.

Quality Assurance:

Quality assurance is involved in the entire software development process. Quality assurance making sure that any agreed upon standards and procedures are followed with intent of defect prevention.

Quality assurance is process oriented.

Quality assurance makes sure that we are doing the right things in the right way.

Planned and systematic activities are necessary to provide confidence that requirements are properly established.

It is an activity that establish and evaluates the processes to produce the product.

It prevents the introduction of issues or defects.

It sets up the measurement programs to evaluate the processes.


Quality Control:

Quality control is product oriented.

Quality control makes sure that what already we have done are the expected results.

It is the process that the product quality is compared against the standards and procedures what we followed and take necessary actions whenever we find defects.

It is an activity to verify whether our product meets the requirements or not.

It detects, reports issues and corrects it by examining the products if they meet customer specifications.

Quality Control not only involves the activity of testing but also involves walkthroughs, inspections and reviews on requirements, design, code and documents.

Walkthrough is an informal meeting for evaluation. Little or no preparation is required.

Inspection is more formalized than a ‘walkthrough’ typically involved 3 to 8 people including moderator, reader and a recorder to take a note.

Testing:

The process of executing the system with the intent of finding defects. Testing is in QC domain i.e. part of QC.

A tester follows various type of testing methodologies in order to test the products.