How to be Successful in Quality Assurance?

Written by
José Moya

In today's world, if you're looking for an exciting experience, look no further than QA. This fascinating field counts on many secrets! This article will discuss its role in Software Development. Also, we'll review the essential qualities you'll need to have in your journey to becoming a great QA. Are you ready? Let's ensure the quality of this position! 

What is Quality Assurance?

Quality Assurance (QA) focuses on the quality management process. This position provides standards, guidelines, or procedures for quality control. Further, it helps to regulate product or service integrity through their development process. Its purpose is to use diverse methods and quality testing tools. These strategies enable QA analysis to measure and regulate quality improvements. Additionally,  several types appear based on the diversity of product qualities. A QA analyst verifies that a product meets all the quality guidelines. This person ensures the standards to suggest changes or approve a product. This analyst is typically in charge of determining potential issues.

How Does Quality Assurance Work?

Quality Assurance’s operational process covers four stages to function. This four-step process ensures to provide a product with the best quality possible.

1st Stage, Planning, involves creating a plan on which basis to act. This first step is where the manager sets goals for developing high-quality products.
● In the 2nd stage, Execution, the team implements the previous scheme with a quality plan in mind. It's at this stage where developing and creating the product takes place.
● The 3rd Stage, Checking, involves performance testing and checking the outcome. Here, teams will know if a product needs changes or upgrades.
● Finally, Retouching is the 4th Step. Here, the team works on all product modifications to guarantee the best quality possible. It focuses on fixing mistakes and retesting quality.

Quality Assurance: The Secrets to being a Successful QA

What are the Steps and Skills of Quality Assurance?

There are some aspects to notice to shape your journey as a successful QA. With them, you can discover if you need more crucial steps to be the best! 

● Positive Behavior. With this approach, you can collaborate with teams while also learning.
● Ready to Report. QA Teams and individuals must keep track of changes for later fixing.
● Providing Insights. Testers can provide insights by analyzing processes and outcomes.
● Business Skills. Business skills are always a go-to for QAs to meet clients' needs.
● Sharing Experiences. Showing others how you do things benefits everyone! 

As a must for success at being a great QA, you also need some crucial hard skills. These aptitudes will allow you to understand how to make the process faster and better. 

● Database Maintenance. It prevents bugs from appearing and products from failing. If you know how to do this, you can become a valuable asset to anyone!
● Specifications Understanding. Crucial to managing a product's system. Knowing this makes it easier to taste and make changes if needed.
● Detail Attention. Considering every detail is vital for Quality Assurance. This action ensures that products count on perfect information.
● Problem-Solving. You must know how to solve and ideate a solution when a problem appears. It ensures your capacity to develop solutions to face issues while working.
● Tool Familiarity. This aspect allows you to deal with more issues when testing a product.
● Empathy. Being empathic is a critical characteristic of QAs. This trait helps you to interact with others to test products faster and understand clients' needs better!

Quality Assurance: The Secrets to being a Successful QA

What are the Pros and Cons of Quality Assurance?

At the same time, it's vital to mention that QA generates diverse interactions. These interactions take place in quality as possible pros and cons for projects. It means they involve the following factors:

Pros of Quality Assurance.

Not-Faulty Products. QA procedures help testers and analysts to ensure products' authenticity. Also, it allows them to find out if it needs changes before launching it.

User Satisfaction. The process makes it easier for product-makers when launching products. With quality guarantees, users receive accurate interactions and a better user experience.

Reactive Processes. QA offers diverse and more reactive methods to identify issues. These methods help fix all product flaws present from launch to later.

Cons of Quality Assurance 

Time-Consuming. QA processes take more time than you think. That time increases significantly when a product changes and grows, meaning constant modifications. As you might have guessed, these processes need a particular type of effort. Thus, the launch could take longer to achieve.

Expensive. Most of these methods can be costly, requiring effort, time, and money. Companies must be willing to perform costly testing to create successful products.

Hard-Trained. Learning about QA is a time-consuming activity. Testing products the right way takes a lot of time and effort!  This edge explains why testing processes tend to be expensive.

Quality Assurance: The Secrets to being a Successful QA

What are the Best Tools for Quality Assurance?

Now, it's time to know which tools are essential! These four options are excellent tools.

Bugzilla

Bugzilla is a tracking system used to track and report bugs. At the same time, it also provides accurate reports faster than other methods.

Selenium

Selenium is an open-source platform that enables users to work while operational structures. It's a good option for testing products through cross-browser testing.

HP UFT/QTP

HP UFT/QTP (formerly QuickTest Professional) focuses on commercial test automation. It helps users to recognize scripting capabilities for building automated test scripts. It's also valuable for testing desktop apps or ERP technology.

Apache JMeter

Apache JMeter is an open-source platform that enables users to test and load products.

Our Thoughts on Quality Assurance

Once we've covered the fundamental basis, we must make space for advice. But what's better than hearing from our QAs at Capicua? They shared some thoughts on it to explain this better.

From a clear perspective, QA is an activity that requires dedication and effort. With being ready to be rigorous, products will have the best results. That's why it's vital that you, as a QA, focus on exploring each possibility while testing. This approach will show you how complex products are. In other words, our advice as a team for you is to go beyond what you're used to doing. Try always to test more automated tests even if you have already done one. This action will make sure that things go well. Also, feel free to test it step-by-step. If you only focus on finishing, you can leave errors without noticing them, so be careful! — Capicuas QA Team.

Quality Assurance: The Secrets to being a Successful QA

Concluding Remarks

Software Quality Assurance activities are a critical part of developing a product. That's why you need many professional qualities to succeed at it. They can go from developing strong communication skills to staying up-to-date. Still, pay attention to yourself; QA takes time, effort, and continuous improvement.

We hope the tips discussed in this article have provided an excellent overview. With these strategies, you can create your products with the highest quality standards. If you want to become a successful QA tester or engineer, keep these secrets at hand!

Our human-centered approach and hard-earned reputation make us able to deliver successful, top-notch, and stunning products. Whether you're looking to move from an idea into a business or thinking of new iterations for your product, our UX-focused Custom Software Development company is here to help. Feel free to reach out, and let's shape the future together!
Contact us!