Re: Do you do QA?

[Rebecca Phillips <rebecca -at- QRONUS -dot- CO -dot- IL>]

In my last job, the documentation and QA functions were under the same department. The advantage for me was that I could freely walk into the testing room and play with the equipment whenever I wanted to check a function or screen. Indeed, sometimes in my capacity as a technical writer I do come across bugs, and I duly report them. However, the connection ends there. After two years of working in the same group as QA, I came to the conclusion that the only connection was that both QA and technical writing have to make up for delays in R&D when meeting customer deadlines; and neither have any input in what those deadlines will be.

Testing is a profession in and of itself, and technical writers do not necessarily have the qualifications to do it. I think that spending time in the testing room, and even performing tests, can contribute greatly to your knowledge of the product. And, as you pointed out, you are involved in some basic quality checks. However, I would not accept QA as part of your area of responsibility. You are probably aware that testing is the bane of R&D. Everybody wants somebody to do it, but nobody wants to do it. Maybe some brilliant engineer who didn't want to do QA came up with this idea, which immediately found overwhelming support among the other engineers.

P.S. Currently, I work for a company which develops automated software testing systems. We see a lot of QA departments, and I don't know of anyone here who thinks that QA and tech writing are connected. 




Rebecca M. Phillips
Documentation Manager
Qronus Interactive Ltd.
rebecca -at- qronus -dot- co -dot- il
----------
From:   Tim Altom[SMTP:taltom -at- IQUEST -dot- NET]
Sent:   Tuesday, July 30, 1996 9:01 PM
To:     Multiple recipients of list TECHWR-L
Subject:        Re: Do you do QA?

At 10:37 AM 7/30/96 -0500, you wrote:
>My coworker and I were recently informed that we were expected to perform QA
>functions in addition to our writing responsibilities, and that QA engineers
>would also be responsible for writing end-user documentation. In our combined
>25+ years of experience, we have never been asked to do such a thing. We do not
>have the training to do real QA testing.

>Certainly we do usability testing as part of our job functions. We evaluate the
>design of a product to ensure that it doesn't hinder the user rather than help
>him do his job. But it seems odd to label us "QA test engineers/technical
>writers" when we also design and create a product that needs to be QA tested.

>I'd like the opinions of other writers. Am I being unreasonable in resisting
>this arrangement?

>Thanks!

>Karen


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