Agile project methodology started 18 years ago but the concept of Quality Assurance started way back in the 19th century with traditional engineering organizations. Quality Assurance has been integrated into software engineering since the time when programmers were writing assembly level code and validation was limited to working software for a prescribed set of machines/users.
Over the decade’s software engineering has evolved and the ever-changing landscape has reaffirmed a need for quality across every stage of the software life cycle. In the recent years, the focus has been more towards delivering working software in small batches incrementally, thereby requiring QAs not only specialize in a particular skill or domain but also be cross-functional and possess the right level of understanding of business needs.
QAs in the future world can expect to be tightly coupled or even wear multiple hats of a business analyst, an architect, a designer, a developer, a product owner or even an Iteration Manager.
Arun Kumar Ellangovan
