SQA as a Career !

Most of the Computer Science graduates in Bangladesh and even in different countries, don't know that SQA can be a career path for their career development. Lets know little about SQA here:


What is Software Quality Assurance?
SQA is the short form of "Software Quality Assurance". Quality Assurance consists of the the processes and methods used to ensure quality. This may include processes such as reviewing requirements documents, source code control, change management, configuration management and of course, software testing.


What is Software Testing?
The principal aim of testing is to detect faults so that they can be removed before the product is made available to customers. It is often referred to as Quality Control.

The British Standards Institution, in their standard BS7925-1, define testing as:
"The process of exercising software to verify that it satisfies specified requirements and to detect faults; the measurement of software quality."

Faults in software are made for a variety of reasons, from misinterpreting the requirements through to simple typing mistakes. It is the role of software testing to reduce those faults by identifying the failures.


What is the difference between QA and Testing?
Quality Assurance can be thought of as a means of preventing software faults, whereas testing is a means of detecting them.

Quality Assurance (QA) encompasses the entire software development process including processes such as code reviews and release management. It is the processes followed by people within the project (Project Managers, Analysts, Developers, Testers etc.) to prevent problems and assure quality.

Software testing is a subset of Quality Assurance; it is one of the processes for ensuring software quality. Software testing is also often called Quality Control(QC) where QC is the measurement of the quality of a product.

Quality Assurance is a monitoring and accountability function that encompasses an entire project to ensure processes, activities, tasks used produce deliverables that result in a quality end product. Its doctrines can be applied to all types of projects. Software Testing is a phase of software development.



About Quality Management:
There are main 3 points of Quality management which we all need to know

1. QUALITY ASSURANCE sets the environment (standards and practices) for ensuring quality products
2. QUALITY CONTROL measures the quality of work products, and makes corrections for quality failures
   
3. QUALITY IMPROVEMENT analyses and corrects the systemic reasons for quality failures

Without measurement, there can be no control of quality, only the illusion that quality is "under control". TESTING is the set of activities (static and dynamic) by which a QC organisation does the measurement. The "work products" tested need not be restricted to executable program code ("dynamic testing"); requirements documents, specifications, designs, and other project artefacts may all be quality controlled by "static testing".

80% of quality failures (defects) derive from failures in process ("common causes"). Essentially, these are failures in QA (which establishes the environment for quality) and QC (which regulates the quality environment). QI analyses the deviation (defect) information provided by QC, and identifies improvements in:

1. QA activities to prevent recurrence of the defects; and
   
2. QC activities to ensure their earlier detection or avoidance.

Feedbacks about SQA and it's Career paths:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SQAtester/message/13803?threaded=1&var=1


Sources: sqatesters.com , softwaretestingwiki.com , Wikimedia , sqabd.com

Introduction

I started this page for focusing different Article discussed on SQA Bangladesh community which might help peoples to know more and share knowledge from one end to another.

Total plan will be written later on..