What Is the Difference between QA and QC/Software Testing

If you work in IT or, at least, had any experience in this area, you definitely know that there are multiple terms to define the testing world. The biggest competitors here are QA (Quality Assurance) and QC (Quality Control) which is basically the same as Software Testing.

Let’s see how these are defined:

Quality Assurance (QA) is a part of quality management focused on providing confidence that quality requirements will be fulfilled. [ISO 9000]

Quality Control/Testing is a process that consisting of all the life cycles activities, both static and dynamic, concerned with planning, preparing and evaluating software products and related work products. It tries to determine if they satisfy specified requirements in order to demonstrate that they are fit for purpose and to detect defects. [ISTQB glossary]

Quality Assurance

This is about process oriented and preventive activities. It means that these activities are focused on improving the software development process and that the system will meet its objectives. The QA Engineer is active throughout the product’s lifecycle and communicates with all the people involved in the process, from Project Manager to Software Developer and QC Engineer. The QA analyses and seeks the continuous improvement of both process and product while ensuring all tasks demonstrate appropriate quality and that are finished on time.

Quality Control/Software testing

Well, this is about product orientated activities and it is a corrective process (testing is a process rather than a single activity – there are a series of activities involved). The QC Engineer must find bugs in the system before users do, investigate and report on how well the software performs relative to its expectations and is generally active at the end of a coding cycle.

Conclusions

QA and QC both have to make the software better, however, QA is about process orientated and preventive activities, while QC involves a corrective process and product orientated activities.