Chapter 2: Maintaining Quality Assurance in Today s Software Testing Environment

Overview

The quality assurance person said, "You are not following the process in the quality manual. We worked hard to write these procedures and you are changing it in the middle of the project. You can't do that."

The developer answered, "I am not changing the process; I am automating the process you published in the quality manual."

"But you are changing it," the quality assurance person insisted.

The developer took a deep breath and tried again, "I'm not changing it; I'm putting it online. See, this electronic form is exactly like your paper checklist form except it's online. This way we can all see it and it is really easy to fill out. No more wondering what happened to it, whose desk it's stuck on. Most of the information is already filled in by the system." The developer beamed. Certainly the quality assurance person would finally understand.

"No, you are changing it," repeated the quality assurance person. "The way you are doing it is not what's described in the quality manual. You just can't do it now."

"But why? We already know this automation will save about 40 person hours and 3,000 pages of paper each week. It will pay for itself in about eight weeks." The developer was becoming exasperated.

"Yes, that may be, but we would have to get together and rework the whole process. Then we'd have to change the quality manual, get it approved, redistribute it, call in all the old copies. You have no idea how much is involved. We are in the middle of the delivery schedule.

"No, you will have to wait until the next release. We just do not have time right now," concluded the quality assurance person.