Shifting our mindset from Quality Assurance to Quality Advocacy
While assuring quality is a necessary step for project success, true impact can only be achieved through advocating quality. Sure, we can follow the typical QA model and just stop bugs from happening at the end, OR we can advocate for quality at all stages of a project in order to outperform and transform! Ensuring the quality of a product is difficult to do if you only begin to worry about it at the end of a project, and yet the QA role that is tasked with ensuring quality is traditionally treated as the last stop for development. Instead, it is better for QA to be involved in advocating for the quality of the product from the very first stages. What does quality advocacy look like? How do you implement it and continue to engage with all factors of discovery and development throughout the duration of a project? Finally, what are the benefits of having quality advocacy as opposed to traditional quality assurance? Quality Assurance is a team effort; therefore strong relationships between Quality Assurance Analysts and Developers are vital.
Session Information
Time: 12:45 - 1:45
Room: Cartoon Room (3rd Floor)
Alexa Beach
Alexa Beach
Alexa Beach is a Senior Quality Assurance Analyst for Core BTS. Alexa has over 8 years of experience in advocating for quality throughout various projects. She is passionate about not only testing functionality, but also testing from the perspective of the end-user. Because of her strong belief that testing should be approached as early in the process as possible, she engages in quality advocacy at every stage of the project, from designing the user interface to uncovering and documenting business requirements. Please don’t throw something over the wall at her. When she is not working, Alexa enjoys spending time with her family at their lake place or a nearby local winery. If you don’t find her there, she is probably at home snuggled up with her pup and a cup of coffee.