What is Quality Assurance(QA)? Process, Methods, Examples

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Last Updated: 21 January 2021

Before we learn Quality Assurance, let's understand-

What is Quality?

Quality is extremely hard to define, and it is simply stated: "Fit for use or purpose." It is all about meeting the needs and expectations of customers with respect to functionality, design, reliability, durability, & price of the product.

What is Assurance?

Assurance is nothing but a positive declaration on a product or service, which gives confidence. It is certainty of a product or a service, which it will work well. It provides a guarantee that the product will work without any problems as per the expectations or requirements.

Quality Assurance in Software Testing

Quality Assurance in Software Testing is defined as a procedure to ensure the quality of software products or services provided to the customers by an organization. Quality assurance focuses on improving the software development process and making it efficient and effective as per the quality standards defined for software products. Quality Assurance is popularly known as QA Testing.

In this tutorial, you will learn-

• How to do Quality Assurance: Complete Process
• What is Quality Control?
• Difference between Quality Control and Quality Assurance?
• Differences between SQA and Software Testing
• Best practices for Quality Assurance
• Quality Assurance Functions
• Quality Assurance Certifications
• CMMI level
• Test Maturity Model (TMM)

How to do Quality Assurance: Complete Process

Quality Assurance methodology has a defined cycle called PDCA cycle or Deming cycle. The phases of this cycle are:

• Plan
• Do
• Check
• Act

These above steps are repeated to ensure that processes followed in the organization are evaluated and improved on a periodic basis. Let's look into the above QA Process steps in detail -

• Plan - Organization should plan and establish the process related objectives and determine the processes that are required to deliver a high-Quality end product.
• Do - Development and testing of Processes and also "do" changes in the processes
• Check - Monitoring of processes, modify the processes, and check whether it meets the predetermined objectives
• Act - A Quality Assurance tester should implement actions that are necessary to achieve improvements in the processes

An organization must use Quality Assurance to ensure that the product is designed and implemented with correct procedures. This helps reduce problems and errors, in the final product.

What is Quality Control?

This certification helps -

• Increase the profit of the organization
• Improves Domestic and International trade
• Reduces waste and increase the productivity of the employees
• Provide Excellent customer satisfaction

CMMI level

The Capability Maturity Model Integrated (CMMI) is a process improvement approach developed specially for software process improvement. It is based on the process maturity framework and used as a general aid in business processes in the Software Industry. This model is highly regarded and widely used in Software Development Organizations.

CMMI has 5 levels. An organization is certified at CMMI level 1 to 5 based on the maturity of their Quality Assurance Mechanisms.

• Level 1 - Initial: In this stage the quality environment is unstable. Simply, no processes have been followed or documented
• Level 2 - Repeatable: Some processes are followed which are repeatable. This level ensures processes are followed at the project level.
• Level 3 - Defined: Set of processes are defined and documented at the organizational level. Those defined processes are subject to some degree of improvement.
• Level 4 - Managed: This level uses process metrics and effectively controls the processes that are followed.
• Level 5 - Optimizing: This level focuses on the continuous improvements of the processes through learning &  innovation.

Test Maturity Model (TMM):

This model assesses the maturity of processes in a Testing Environment. Even this model has 5 levels, defined below-

• Level 1 - Initial: There is no quality standard followed for testing processes and only ad-hoc methods are used at this level
• Level 2 - Definition: Defined process. Preparation of test strategy, plans, test cases are done.
• Level 3 - Integration: Testing is carried out throughout the software development lifecycle (SDLC) - which is nothing but integration with the development activities, E.g., V- Model.
• Level 4 - Management and Measurement: Review of requirements and designs takes place at this level and criteria has been set for each level of testing
• Level 5 - Optimization: Many preventive techniques are used for testing processes, and tool support(Automation) is used to improve the testing standards and processes.

Conclusion:

Quality Assurance is to check whether the product developed is fit for use. For that, Organization should have processes and standards to be followed which need to be improved on a periodic basis. It concentrates mainly on the quality of product/service that we are providing to the customers during or after implementation of software.