10 Interesting Facts about Quality Assurance

In general, the term quality assurance refers to the technical process of avoiding errors when manufacturing products of any kind.
Unlike quality control, this term implies giving the client a certain degree of confidence towards the characteristics of the product he or she is about to purchase.
Present in basically any field, QA is particularly important in tech: software quality assurance testing is in essential procedure that developers cannot overlook in this day and age, when computers are defining everyday life.
Unfortunately, not many people are aware of the importance of QA or they don't know what it is to begin with.

Here are 10 interesting facts about QA as a whole and its importance in organizations

1. Interestingly, the history of quality assurance starts in World War II, when ammunition had to be tested for performance.
Nowadays, the end purpose of QA is to correct potential errors before the product is released.

2. Quality Assurance can be associated with every possible field of activity, from banking and education to software and consulting.
However, each business employs different tools and methods for QA.In large enterprises, there is usually an entire QA department.

3. QA is a complex process and should be done in a systematic way.
More often than not, an entire team of experts has to work hard to make sure that the software, or any other product, delivers the promised results.

4. Testing is extremely important and so is monitoring.
For example, in software quality assurance, the process and methods by which the program is developed matter as much as the final result.
It should be pointed out that testing has to be carried out in controlled conditions, based on the law of causality.For example, testers may try to replicate user
behavior and determine what could and couldn't happen when the product is operated in a certain way.

5. There are several regulations that clarify quality assurance. For example, in the case of SQA, these regulations are ISO 9000 and CMMI.

6. ISO 9000 was published in 1987 as part of a quality assurance system created especially for organizations that want to make sure that their products live up to customer demands.
Meanwhile, Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) is a training program for product improvement.
Companies oftentimes display compliance with these standards to show customers that they operate on the principle of excellence.
Needless to say, a company can only be certified once all errors are corrected.

7. In order to ensure QA, the team working on a certain project can conduct specific tests, generate bugs and thus improve product quality.
In software development, testing bugs is an essential part of QA. Without meticulous bug tracking system like BugUp for example, entire computer systems can fail and even be compromised.

8. QA is absolutely essential; without it, not only do organizations risk releasing products that are below market standards, but also
lose money, wasted time and not fully exploit the potential of an idea.

9. Since QA can be complicated and time-consuming, managers can streamline the process using specialized utilities.
For example, in SQA, test case management tools and bug tracking systems ease the testers' job and provide more accuracy.

10. Last, but not least, QA cannot be possible without documentation.Testers need to have access to comprehensive guides, manuals and lists of specifications.
Nowadays, documentation has been made considerably easier thanks to computers, because, in the past, QA testers and engineers had to work with printed copies. You might want to read this article about application lifecycle management and its help to organizations.
These are just 10 basic facts about QA; the process itself is quite a complex topic of discussion and can be analyzed from many technical perspectives.

Some of the biggest problems that can affect the quality or thoroughness of the process are lack of time, ineffective test plans and test cases and, of course, the improper distribution of testing tasks.

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