Being QA... !!

What do we understand from this –

Being a Questions and Answer, Questionnaire, Quality Analyst, Quality Assurance, Inspector, Trouble Maker, Auditor, Assessor, Process Enabler, etc.

Let me make it clear this post has been written for QA professional who are not in testing profile (please do excuse me for this). 

Coming to the post, most of the people do not understand what QA actually do?

So, to minimize* the confusion let’s change the title of blog.      *minimize – frequently used word by QA guys.

Expressions of QA

“Being QA to the Organization”

This is one of the most respected and cursed job in any kind of organization.

Respected –

When you work with the counterpart/stakeholder in sync they want you to work. By always making them happy showing ‘green’ in their reports.  The teams you are supporting have met the targets, no breach at all in any kind of the metrics. Everything is going on very well plus you are getting lots of appreciation from them – “Super job”, “Your work is highly appreciated”, “Thank you for tremendous help” , blah blah blah….

You yourself are very happy with how things are going on. But are we doing justice to our job, we will see it in cursed part of QA job.

Cursed/ Dislike –

The real pain starts when you show them where the team is/are lagging; their metrics are showing all different kinds of color (normally red, yellow and amber). Suddenly the stakeholder starts changing their behavior, you start getting escalation mails, your manager gets mail from your assigned team for replacement of QA and sometimes they even stop answering to your call or replying to mail/chat.

This is time your actual jobs start to show yourself how efficiently/effectively you are going to manage this kind of situation and convince the team to how quickly they can cope up this issue/problem.

However till date (65 months of QA journey) I have been always assigned to the team who are supportive to me in all kinds of situation i.e. whether they are performing good or bad. Few exceptions are their but that’s where I have learned a lot from them.

I would like thank them for being supportive and always listening to me carefully.

Also I am very lucky to get nurtured by good managers. Thanks a lot to them as well for making me what I am now.

After all these gyan(knowledge), let me not make this whole topic as my experience of being QA.

So the Role and Responsibilities of QA are -

I have copied few points from resumes of my superior, googled and also from my resume.

I cannot write all the points here or else it will become thesis which only selected person will want to read in these fast moving days.

(Not copied shamelessly)

QA is responsible for ensuring a product or service meets the established standards of quality including reliability, usability and performance.

• To draft quality assurance policies and procedures. (The documentation part of job, it forces us to learn proper English, company terminology and some jargons which are compulsory to know to survive in the organization).
• To Interpret and Implement quality assurance standards. Also evaluate the adequacy of quality assurance standards (not only standards; make sure models & framework are working properly)
• Devise sampling procedures and directions for recording and reporting quality data.
• Document internal audits and other quality assurance activities (this is the bread and butter for QA job).
• Investigate customer complaints and non-conformance issues. Also assure ongoing compliance with quality and industry regulatory requirements (‘NC’, the word which is nightmare for everyone)
• Collect and Compile statistical quality data (Knowledge of Basic Statistics is must)
• Analyze data to identify areas for improvement in the quality system (Show us the opportunity to get appreciations from higher management)
• Develop, recommend and monitor corrective and preventive actions. Evaluate audit findings and implement appropriate corrective actions.  (Love the word CAPA, the actual exercise of brain happens here)
• Prepare reports to communicate outcomes of quality activities. (The dashboards, everyone likes it and why not it is the most powerful/simplest/easiest way to show the performance of the organization. No body cares about the ground work done behind this)
• Identify training needs and organize training interventions to meet quality standards (This becomes goals of the individuals in most cases)
• Monitor risk management activities (Issues and Risk are the siblings which surely should be taken care properly)

The blog is open for everyone and I would love to get feedback, comments and suggestions on it. And I am very happy to publish my first blog (this has not been reviewed by anyone before publishing).