In recent years there has been a trend towards empowering (or at least encouraging) developers to do thier own testing. Automation frameworks, continuous integration, unit testing, contract based testing, and various other tools and processes make developer testing easier and more effective than ever before.
So do we really need testers? Do we need a separate QA depepartment?
Obviously, we need to assure quality, but should there be a separate QA role?
A good craftsman, after all, should make certain to deliver quality work, and who better to make sure that happens than the expert who designed and built it? And software development is craftsmanship.
There are several reasons why I think that QA should still exist as a separate role, but it boils down to 2 major arguments:
- Perspective
- Time
Perspective
The saying goes that “you can’t see the forest for the trees” and this applies to developers and testing — they are too close to the product to spot it’s flaws. Or looking at it another way — they are focused on creating something, not on finding out how it can be broken. Much like a writer needs an editor, and an artist needs a critic. Having someone with a different perspective is valuable for seeing things someone intimately involved in the creation process may not see. There is definitely value in having an expert examine the system, but there is also value on having someone inspect it with a naive approach.
And then there is the issue with my statement above about a craftsman judging his own work. Even if my premise about a naive perspective bringing value in testing is wrong, the problem lies with the assumption that a single craftsman creates his productx in isolation. Many software projects are so big, that no one person can understand the whole scope of the system, so one person can be responsible for ensuring that everything works together correctly.
And it is primarily in the cracks between different systems (or parts of a system) that bugs are found.
Time
Secondly, developers don’t always have the time to fully test their software, and even if they make the time (and ignoring any issues about perspective), they question becomes — is this the most effective use of their time?
Developers are experts, not only in the craft of making software, but also in the systems they are making software for. As such, their time is valuable – – and why they are (and should be) handsomely paid for their expertise.
Having someone whose expertise is different (if not less) perform the more labor intensive, repetitive tasks where less expertise (at least in software development) is required only makes sense. The CEO isn’t expected to do everything at a company, even in situations when they might actually be able to. Doctor have nurses, technicians, and other assistants to help them maximize the value of their expertise, and thus the time they can spend on their specialty, and developers should be no different.
My Perspective on QA
I look at my role in QA as providing a fresh perspective, but also especially providing a way to maximize the productivity of developers, product owners, and others by providing the services that they might very well be able to do on their own, but would slow down their velocity if they had to.
I look at test automation as an extension of that. The goal of test automation is to make testers more effective, and relieve them of the boring drudgery of repetitive regressions, that might otherwise cause them to miss important defects, and that allows them to do creative, exploratory, destructive testing.
Fijiaaron 