For you what is Quality Assurance?

Wow, this is the first topic on my blog since I created this last April 2005! And why did I choose this topic? It's simply because I'm currently working as a Software Quality Assurance Engineer in one of the software development companies in Makati City. Before I forgot, I'll be turning 1 year on April 16, 2008! Imagine I was able to live 1 year of my life in a here? Ok, enough about that and I'll go back to the main topic of this blog.

So for you what is Quality Assurance? Oh my, this has been asked to me many times on almost all the interviews that I've attended before. (And for sure even in the future!) Want to know my answer? It's just, "Quality Assurance is making sure that the project or application is developed and delivered on-time according to the specified requirements, functional, and bug-free."

But what is the correct definition of Quality Assurance? According to AskNumbers.com, "Quality Assurance makes sure the project will be completed based on the previously agreed specifications, standards and functionality required without defects and possible problems. It monitors and tries to improve the development process from the beginning of the project to ensure this. It is oriented to "prevention"." Actually, Quality Assurance is not just completing the agreed specifications, standards and functionalities. We can say that it also needs to follow a specific process before the completion can be attained. But of course the process should be based on the specifications and functionalities, and follow the standards. An application or project that passed quality assurance is a boost the credibility of a company. On recent days, quality assurance improves the company's processes and efficiency to have a better competition with others, and catch the defects of the applications or systems before they are delivered. Before, quality assurance was used during World War II to check and test if the munitions are working as they should be.

I've seen many definitions and explanations about what is Quality Assurance. All of them are correct, all explains Quality Assurance in different ways. But in the end all of the companies and individuals who uses quality assurance only have one goal --- that is to deliver functional systems that meets the specifications and standards with the best quality.

That ends it, but I'll do more next time!