Is quality assurance the same as testing and bug fixing? [closed]

Question

What is quality assurance? Is it testing and bug fixing, or is it something more?

Answer 1

Software QA involves the entire software development process - monitoring and improving the process, making sure that any agreed-upon standards and procedures are followed, and ensuring that problems are found and dealt with.

more detail: Software QA FAQ

Answer 2

Q) What is Quality Assurance?

• Quality assurance refers to the processes and procedures that systematically monitor different aspects of a service, process or facility to detect, correct and ensure that quality standards are being met.

• Quality assurance helped us to eliminate defective products and increase customer satisfaction.

Q) Is it testing and bug fixing, or is it something more?

• Quality Assurance is more than testing. It provides a framework to define how the quality is defined in an organization and it should be implemented in an organization. Processes and procedures concerned with quality would be defined here.

• It is related to the entire software development process, carefully examining and monitoring the software development process, feeding back the process problems they find, performing testing, and have the authority to decide when the product is ready for the release.

• primary goal is "no bugs" as opposed to keeping the product on schedule or under budget.

so, above point clarifies that it is QA much more than testing :)

Answer 3

QA is much more than bug fixing and testing. It's also more than checking the product against the defined scope (though that is an important part).

QA should be happening at all stages of the project or project phase. The requirements should be subject to QA to ensure that they are meaningful, achievable and so on. The unit tests should be subject to QA to ensure that they give sufficient coverage to the application. Note this isn't checking that the test works but that the tests as whole are "good enough". The code itself should be subject to QA in the form of code reviews and unit tests.

These QA activities don't have to be carried out by a separate department - code reviews are something that are and should be done by fellow developers.

If (and it's a big if) there is sufficient QA throughout the project then the amount of testing/bug fixing that happens at the end of a project phase should be kept to a minimum.

Answer 4

QA = Testing, it validate and verify.

Bug fix is not the job of tester. while tester can indicate bugs for programmer.

Testing is also among one of the five stage in software development.

Usually, last stage(maintenance/enhancement) is involved with bug fixation stuff.

But during the whole life cycle of SW development, bugs are identified through testing, or by customer, or by programmer.

Answer 5

QA is the short form of Quality Assurance.

Quality Assurance means Checking a product against the defined scope where the scope is fulfilled or not. It includes the testing bug fixing and other things.

First QA Team will check the product against the defined scope and If they found mistake or improper functionality in product then they will post a bug and assigned to a developer who had developed this product.

Developer will fix this issues called bug. QA Team will again check the same thing and verified this.

This cycle will continue until and unless the defined scope of project is satisfied.

You can also find further information from the following links..

Definition Of QA:

http://www.google.co.in/search?hl=en&defl=en&q=define:Quality+assurance&ei=vzUDSvqLCKjq6gP2v6yaAw&sa=X&oi=glossary_definition&ct=title

Definition OF Bug Fixing

http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/bug+fix

Definition Of Testing

http://searchwindevelopment.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid8_gci534970,00.html

Other links:

http://www.softwaretestinghelp.com/types-of-software-testing/
http://www.exforsys.com/tutorials/testing/bug-life-cycle-guidelines.html
http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2005/08/11/fixingbugs.html

Hope this helps you

You can still find millions of result and definition in google

Cheers,

Answer 6

Quality Assurance begins right from the initial stage of any project. It includes executing of set of processes and procedures set by an organization to achieve certain quality goals.

Validation forms an important part in Quality Assurance. You have to validate against desired output or requirements given.

There is no software in universe without bugs in any platform the user use. Aim is to get smart product with maximum number of cases sorted out and handled in software. By usage and cases I mean to cover up maximum number of behavioral cases of customer

You can assure about the quality of your product only when you have set of documentary evidence. Evidence stating that you have performed all the process and all the tasks have been performed.

QA team has lots of responsibilities when it comes to certification of standardization of organization. e.g. certificates such as ISO 9001:2008

Answer 7

For the real definitions (yes there's more than just one) of quality assurance you could check ISO 24765 which is a standard that defines software-engineering terms. (I do not think i am allowed to copy paste the definitions here so i am just making reference). ISO 24765 regroup the definitions of ISO 12207 and ISO 15288 so you could as well check theses two. CMMI also guive it's own definition of QA.

For your information :

ISO 12207 -> Systems and software engineering - Software life cycle processes.
ISO 15288 -> Systems and software engineering - System life cycle processes.
ISO 24765 -> Systems and software engineering - Vocabulary

I would define quality assurance in 2 parts.

=>(software) Quality assurance is a systematic way of acquiring good confidence that a software will meet quality. QA is composed of Processes -> Activities -> Tasks -> Procedures. The number of Processes and the deepness in which the Processes will be decomposed in Activities, Tasks and Procedures will usualy depend on the size of the team and the Criticality of the software being developed. QA will mostly try to prevent defects while Quality Control will try to uncover defects (so i think bug fixing is not part of QA but its part of Quality Control). QA has testing processes but it focuses more on integration and qualification testing.

=>Quality is the degree to which the software will fulfill the client's needs (both said and not said), requirements and expectations. (Note that its pretty hard to know the client's unsaid need and the client's expectations).

Answer 8

Testing and Bug Fixing and Verifying is part of the QA . But QA as such is process/practice to make sure the promised quality is delivered. So QA might involve making sure Requirements are complete/ Requirements are valid/ Correct Build process is implemented / Dev are practicing good coding practices..not that all are implemented in all projects but its a part of QA