Not me, not me

I heard from a few friends of mine, that I'm wrong about software owners choosing to ship untested software and I thought I'd drop a quick note about that.

Does QA actually release the software themselves when they feel it is ready?

If not, then whomever owns the software and decides to ship is overriding the QA group.

It happens when QA's schedule is nickel and dime'd up front. When the QA schedule at the end of the project is compressed because dev teams slipped. When the software is released with known bugs. When the QA team isn't given an equal voice and influence at the triage table. When time for building automated test suites is cut.

The only time QA is really in control is when they have total go/no-go authority _AND_ they aren't being pressured by one manager up who is vested in the date.

Mind you, I don't think the QA group should be given total go/no-go authority. That is a business decision that needs to take a lot of factors into account. I wish I could say that it was only about "quality" but it isn't. Besides, what is "quality" anyway and who's requirements define the quality of the software product? Is the QA team incented to follow the business goals (which always include quality) or to let no bugs get to production? The two are very different.

I just bring this up because the conversation gets easier when we own up. You own the software, you decide when to release. If you can accept this fact it clears up a lot of other confusing issues.

I own the software and am responsible for it working or not working.

I own the test rigs and test environments since those things are critical to my knowing that my software is going to work. Just as I use testing to verify the work of the developers, I use the developers to verify the work of QA. I leverage the QA team to develop some components of that test system along with my dev team but I am still responsible for the test team's output even though they report up through a different chain. They are essentially loaned to me as part of my team for their expertise. All of the test environment code is reviewed by someone from the dev team as we may have to modify it, fix it, extend it while they are doing other important work, just like inside the dev team.

If you can own-up to this state of mind, your interactions with your QA team _will_ change as now you are working together on your own thing -- the thing that you have vested interest in.