Does it always feel like your team is chasing after quality? Are you taking steps to improve quality, but it never feels like it’s moving the needle?

Join Erika Chestnut in this talk, where she explores the opportunities organizations miss when they put quality in a box. She’ll share creative ways to break out of the box and expand the role of quality beyond the test step.

Don’t miss the opportunity to learn how to define, develop and drive a culture of quality that is bigger than the box

Poor quality is a succession of missed opportunities!

Bad quality happens. But how do we ensure we move towards good quality?

Do you have acceptance criteria? Test strategies? Something documented that you handover to software engineers.

-> Turn to the neighbour quality mindset: relying on a subconscious culture of quality

this will break down as the business scales

Quality Mantras

• scale down to scale up
• say the hard truth
• come to the table
• …

Startup with 3.4 billion dollars asked to scale faster than possible

=> chaos!!! Chaos is kryptonite to quality

chaos because they did not have to make choices, they can do it all at once

Claim missed opportunities

Many orgs struggle to balance quality and innovation -> it all comes down to silos

Standards, processes, and policies create continuity through consistency that results in higher quality

Chaos is kryptonite

Process is the sun for continuity

We have so much combined testing and quality that we don’t see quality anymore outside, beyond the test column

-> seeing the gaps in the business that we need to fix to improve quality

Vicious testing cycle

Disempowered -> disengaged -> low expectations -> marginalised -> replaced

40% of testers learn on the job

guess what they learn: the vicious circle ⭕️

A culture of quality is extending quality beyond the test box

The unique position of QA engineers allows them to see the product and the business from different perspectives

Rapid innovation is creating quality issues that can’t be solved in the test column

The pace of innovation takes over quality. Teams are so focussed on innovation there is no room for quality.

Often caused by poor onboarding, this impacts team success negatively, breaks trust and thus impacts quality

-> poor collaboration -> poor quality

Another missed opportunity is to bring the quality team together. Often they are siloed inside the engineering team, siloed again inside the teams.

-> quality teams have the opportunity to connect quality across the business

You can’t have a culture of quality without a community that will cultivate it!

-> look as a qa engineer in the org how to create that community

Cross the Aisle: partner with product

-> drive high quality outcomes

=> influence the culture of quality

the role of QA engineers should not be limited to testing

See the opportunity to improve quality, then take action

Define Quality

a defining trait of a true culture of quality is that employees are free to apply judgement to situations that fall outside of …

A clear definition empowers the organisation

when no clear definition of quality there are a lot of missed opportunities outside the test column

What is the goal, what do we measure, …

We most be willing to step out of the test box and take ownership