Managers, Hug your quality assurance analyst / tester / engineer the next time you see him / her
In the almost 3 years I have been in the role as a QA Analyst, I've come to understand that we are the first people that get blamed when things go wrong, and the last to get rewarded when they go right.
Quality Assurance Analysts / Testers / Engineers have to be as smart as Project Managers, as savy as Developers, and all the while imaginative and innovative in the testing process.
We have to deal with less-than-stellar documentation, often filling the blanks where they exist .. and they do exist. More often than not, we must be as attuned to the project as the Client, but often we are kept in the dark about specifics.
When bugs are found, its always the tester's fault. When they get missed, its always our fault. When the developers run late in coding, its test time that suffers and its our fault when testing is inadequate. But we do push back.
But if you don't think quality assurance is important, ask any one who has recently visited the healthcare.gov website and tried to sign up for affordable health care.
I can promise you, it wasn't tested. If it had been properly "QA'd", more people would have subscribed to their plans and Obama would be a national hero.
And guess who's fault that would be ;)
Til next time my QA bretheren .. keep up the good work!
