Transforming QA into Quality Engineering: A Pragmatic Approach

As the job search continues, I’ve been learning about a consulting mindset, had some great conversations with some awesome people and read some really useful books. All have led me to a point where a model I’d been working on for a while has been developed further and would provide a useful basis for helping a team move to a more holistic testing or Quality Engineering mindset.

It needs hitting home further, but not every company is delivering in an agile/iterative manner and a waterfall project approach is still prominent, and this usually means testing is only done at the end, it’s mainly manual and the only members of a test team involved earlier, would be the Test Manager or Test Lead.

Let’s face it, traditional QA/testing practices often get a bad rap and there is still an incredible amount of snobbery in the industry towards those not performing more modern methods. Testing that’s crammed in at the last minute, manual processes riddled with inefficiencies, and silos that make collaboration feel like pulling teeth. It’s frustrating, but for some companies, it kinda works and they haven’t had fresh eyes come in and show them it can be better. Here’s the thing, it doesn’t need to be a big bang approach to adopt Quality Engineering (QE) as a practice. It’s not just testing by a fancier name; it’s a holistic mindset shift that embeds quality at the heart of delivery. And here’s the key point, it doesn’t only work in an agile environment.

If you’re looking to help steer your organisation towards modern QE practices, here’s a brief intro to a phased approach that gives you an opportunity to step back, look at the whole picture and really identify where and how you could improve:

Phase 1: Assess and Plan – Laying the Groundwork
Before you dive in, you’ve got to know where you’re starting from. Analyse your current workflows: How is testing discussed? When is it considered? What tools and frameworks are in play? Most importantly, where are the bottlenecks?

Once you’ve got the lay of the land, set clear QE objectives. What’s the endgame? Is it quicker time-to-market? Better defect prevention? Or is it more complete test coverage? Align these with your company’s goals, and don’t forget to bring your team and stakeholders along for the ride. A collaborative vision that everyone buys into makes all the difference.

Phase 2: Evolve Capabilities – Building the Foundations
Now it’s time to roll up your sleeves. Develop a QE roadmap with key milestones, like increasing automation or embedding shift-left and shift-right practices. Invest in the right tools; whether it’s Playwright, Postman, JMeter, or the latest AI-driven testing solutions, ensure they fit your needs.

But QE isn’t just about tools; it’s about people. Build a team with the right mix of skills and foster a culture of cross-functional collaboration. Training and workshops go a long way here. And if new roles like QE Architects are needed, back them with solid business justification.

Phase 3: Implement Practices – Driving the Change
Here’s where the real fun begins. Get QE involved early. From requirements gathering to design discussions. This shift-left approach ensures quality isn’t just bolted on at the end. Similarly, embrace shift-right by using monitoring and observability tools to close the loop and provide valuable feedback.

Continuous testing is another non-negotiable. Automate your functional, regression, and performance tests within CI/CD pipelines to catch issues before they snowball. Don’t overlook test data management either, realistic test scenarios and compliance with regulations like GDPR are critical.

Phase 4: Foster a Quality-First Culture
Changing tools and processes is one thing, but changing mindsets? That’s where the magic happens. Quality isn’t just the QA team’s job, it’s everyone’s responsibility. Developers, testers, ops teams, stakeholders, it’s a shared priority. But of course, the danger here is that if it’s everyone’s responsibility, is it also no-one’s responsibility? This is why it’s important to embed the right messages in way that everyone in the team cares.

Celebrate successes along the way. Whether it’s an innovative idea or a successfully implemented QE practice, shout about it! And create space for experimentation, allow your teams to explore new methods and tools without fear of failure. Showing them that there is opportunity to learn and try again using the additional information you now have.

Phase 5: Measure and Adapt – Keeping the Momentum
Finally, measure what matters. Track metrics like defect density, automation coverage, and time-to-resolution. But don’t stop there, tie these to business outcomes, like improved customer satisfaction or reduced production incidents. With this, you then have a language you can talk to senior leaders and wider stakeholders in, this enabled conversations to be more useful than pass/fail rates.

Continuous improvement should be the mantra. Use retrospectives and feedback loops to refine your practices, and keep an eye on emerging trends like AI-driven testing or robotics to stay ahead of the curve.

Conclusion
Transforming QA into QE isn’t an overnight process, but it’s worth it. By laying the groundwork, building the right capabilities, and fostering a culture that prioritises quality, you can create a future where testing isn’t just a checkpoint but an integral part of delivering exceptional software.

Quality isn’t a destination; it’s a journey. Let’s start taking the steps to get there.

What do you think? Could an approach like this work for you?

In my next blog, I’ll dive deeper into that first phase of assessing the current landscape and working out what the overall goal is. As “adopting Quality Engineering” will mean different things to different teams and there isn’t one size fits all…