Every company certainly wants customer satisfaction with the products they create or are currently developing. The role of quality assurance is needed for the company’s product quality testing process.
They will definitely try to create a perfect product so that there are no errors, bugs, let alone freezes. In order to get this, it takes a repeated check and a repair.
In the digital era, as now, there are lots of companies trying to create their own applications or websites. Thus, Quality Assurance professionals are clearly needed. For a more complete explanation of QA, here is the explanation.
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Definition of Quality Assurance
Technology is clearly a very important thing, various jobs in technology are the things that are much sought after. Quality Assurance is a series of systematic processes to determine whether a product or service can meet specified requirements.
This Quality Assurance determines and also establishes a requirement to make and also develop a certain product so that it can have a good quality. But, why do we need to maintain the quality of the product? This is of course to maintain the credibility of the company.
In addition, maintaining good product quality can also increase consumer confidence, improve work processes, and can also make the company able to compete with other competitors who are just as superior.
Quality Assurance also uses a process approach to prevent product defects. There is monitoring starting from the planning stage to the testing stage. This can also reduce rework or rework. So that the work process will be more efficient and also avoid customer complaints.
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Duties of Quality Assurance
In general, the task of Quality Assurance or QA is to guarantee the quality of a product created or being developed by a company. Apart from that, Quality Assurance also has several other tasks, such as:
- Create a detailed, comprehensive and structured plan for testing and test cases.
- Interpret, construct, and comply with the company’s quality assurance standards.
- Conduct an analysis of every consumer complaint and also quality discrepancies.
- Documenting an activity from quality assurance into a report form and also an internal audit.
- Develop a new standard for the process of production stages according to needs and also create a testing protocol.
- Ensuring that every product produced will be able to meet a company standard and also consumer needs.
- Recommend an improvement to a product after a test.
- Documenting a note of improvement to be used as a reference in making the next product.
- Develop a Standard Operating Procedure plan or what is called an SOP for the production process of products or services.
- Collaborate with internal team members for discovery and problem solving.
Those are some of the duties and responsibilities of a Quality Assurance or QA in general. However, there is not only one type of Quality Assurance. There are many types of a QA. Several types of quality assurance are as follows:
- QA Engineer or what can be called a Software Quality Assurance.
- Hospitality Quality Assurance
- Customer Service Quality Assurance.
- Content QA or Quality Assurance, too
- Web Quality Assurance, and also several other types of QA.
The tasks of each QA will certainly be different, more specifically. For example, Software Quality Assurance, the tasks that are owned are more frequent testing of a software or application.
This of course will be different from a Customer Service Quality Assurance, because the task of a QA customer service will be more directed to guaranteeing the quality of service to consumers.
You can also easily provide services to consumers through chatbots that help customer service to chat consumers automatically.
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Skills Required by Quality Assurance Professions
There are several skills that must be possessed to become a Quality Assurance. Of course, the specific skills required by a Quality Assurance will also be different, depending on the job title they have.
The following are some common skills for QA, including:
- Ability in Critical Thinking.
- Someone who can pay attention to a detail.
- Have an ability and skill to do analysis.
- Have the ability in problem solving or so-called problem solving.
- Able to communicate well, both orally and in writing.
- Have teamwork skills.
- And the last is the ability to do project management.
Some of the soft skills needed to become a Quality Assurance or QA are usually similar. For example, for a Software QA or QA engineer, in this case, of course, they must be able to master several things related to programming languages.
For example, they must be able to master programming languages such as Java, Javascript, and also Python. Then, there is also the SDLC, which is a Software Development Life Cycle.
Not only that, a Software Quality Assurance must also be able to know how to use testing tools such as Katalon, Selenium, Postman, JMeter. Then there is also manual testing, and also automation testing, and several other things.
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The difference between Quality Assurance and Quality Control
In a company, to be able to guarantee the quality of a product, usually there will be a Quality Assurance and Quality Control who is in charge of it.
Not infrequently, these two things are considered the same, when in fact these two things clearly have a fundamental difference. The following are the basic differences between QA and QC:
- QA will focus more on the process of product defect prevention (i.e. a preventive action) as well as process quality optimization. QA will also carry out a monitoring process and also prepare SOPs for production processes and products or services that are made using the right method through the process. The process of this quality assurance also aims to be able to improve the quality of products or services that are being produced by a company.
- Whereas Quality Control is more focused on identifying or finding a defect in a product. So, they will work after the product has been produced and also developed. This QC is carried out on a final result of a product. Later, they will also carry out several inspections and tests to be able to find a product defect and also try to fix it so that the quality can be further improved.
In the task of a Quality control, actually there are 3 aspects that are emphasized in this approach. It is Elements such as soft elements, which are divided as follows:
- Elements for Quality control such as: control, management for work, processes that are always defined and well managed, criteria of integrity and performance, as well as an identification record.
- Part As in Quality control is: a knowledge, skills, experience, and also a qualification.
- The Soft Elements section, such as staffing, integrity, trust, organizational culture, motivation, a team spirit, and also quality relationships.
Even though the realm of work is different, a QA and QC both have an important role to maintain and also guarantee the quality of a product or service. The quality of a product or service created and also developed by this company is of course very important to maintain in order to be able to compete with other competitors who are just as superior.
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Why is a QA so needed by companies?
Quality Assurance is very much needed in a company because it can provide companies with real data about what consumers want directly from the source. Companies can also identify points and areas that really need to be improved in maintaining the quality of a product or service for a company.
Even though the quality of the product is very high, this will build trust with consumers and can make the level of the company’s strength in the market even stronger. When consumers are dissatisfied with a product from a company. So, consumers in general will make a complaint or protest against the product. This of course will damage the reputation of a company.
With guaranteed product quality, this is also an investment for the company. When the guarantee of this quality is done correctly, the company will be more confident and maximal in marketing its products and competing with other competitors.
Quality Assurance also plays a big role in the productivity of employees, especially production staff. By having a product quality guarantee that is patent and also certain. So the production staff will also be able to get a much clearer job description about the steps of their performance.
With this, of course, the waste resulting from the production of products that do not match the quality will also be minimized by production employees. Therefore, the role of Quality Assurance is clearly needed in a company.
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Quality Assurance Career Path in the Company
Just like every other position or position in a company. Being a quality assurance is certainly an advantage.
According to the Tech Beacon page, there are several career paths that a Quality Assurance person will be able to pass, the following is a list:
1. Product Manager
The career of being a product manager still has a relationship with quality assurance. A career as a product manager requires expertise to be able to analyze, conduct an audit, and also provide a solution for a product.
Because being a Quality Assurance is a profession that requires you to have good problem solving skills, being a product manager can be one of the careers that you can choose.
2. Become a DevOps
DevOps is one of the jobs that automate processes to be able to develop a product and also a team. So that the process of releasing a product will be carried out quickly and also optimally.
The DevOps profession also has a responsibility similar to Quality Assurance, which is to test a product before releasing it. However, to become a DevOps, you need to have a special expertise in programming languages.
3. Become a Customer Experience Leader
Quality assurance is a profession that requires knowledge and also focuses on its customers.
The main focus of a Quality Assurance is to prioritize the expectations of customers for a product they will launch.
4. IT Management
The next career path for a Quality Assurance person is to become an IT Management. The skills you will need for this position are having the ability to think critically and also be able to analyze things.
So from that, with the task of a Quality Assurance in charge, doing a management is no longer a big thing for them.
However, in creating a quality product, it is not only based on production systems and established standards. An employee also has an important role in the practice process. To be able to create superior employees, of course the management of human resources and also the right stock of products is also needed.