Quality Assurance: Behavior Specialists

Quality Assurance has always been a conundrum since the day the first QA engineer came into existence.  We can imagine how they came to be.

In The Beginning

A bunch of developers were writing code. They all realized hat they needed to have some tests written and so they elected a specific developer to just write tests on their code so the others could keep going. Over time that poor developer lost their perspective and their knowledge of the code base. Once an engineer finished their work, they would pitch it over the wall and expect a report back by the end of the day, even if the end of the day was in 15 minutes. So over time, QA became viewed as a substandard position, a dead end for a career. Recently, that has started to change.

Misunderstandings

We want to focus for a moment on what QA is really doing, and perhaps we can find a better definition and role. Remember, in Continuous Confidence, we want to use people to their full potential and thus we will redefine what people do and what they become.

When the product team, or the product owner says "Let's build X Feature", traditionally they speak directly to the developer, and mass chaos ensues. Let's be perfectly honest, when communicating with developers the very first thing they, we, attempt to do is solve the problem, so we speak in terms of the specific solutions. Have we ever seen sprint story that is entitled after implementation details? For example, "Customer Table"? This is a symptom of that behavior. We love focusing on the detail and as such, end up skipping details. We wait to bring QA into the picture until the development is finished. By then it becomes a game of telephone, because details are lost, we always go back to product asking how something should behave etc. thus wasting time and effort.

A Better Way

There is a better way: Focus on the behavior of the code. Here is where QA comes to the rescue. They are almost a mini project manager on the team. They are one of THE most valuable members of the team, and it is time we use them. 

Consultants

They are consultants. They help developers think outside the box on how to test a piece of code. They help product in understanding what they have missed in define how the code product should work.

Behavior Specialists

Ultimately, some of the best developers around could be on a QA team. QA should be focusing on defining the behavior of the product. Translating those requirements into concrete Behavior Points that developers can clearly understand and implement. QA defines manageable chunks of a feature to be then broken down into stories.

Focusing on the Behavior of the code verses the quantity or he quality, actually increases both the quantity and the quality. We will speak more about Behavior Points and QA, but ultimately, let's empower our QA team and there by empower all involved.