Anyone know of videos/articles explaining what quality in Software Engineering means these days?

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Hi all!

I have started to spread my wings within the company I work for into another area that hasn’t really had any quality love for a very long time and basically I am teaching them all what quality means these days. That quality means so much more than just automated testing.

I started this last week with their leadership team but in order to help “scale me” with these thoughts, they have asked are there any good videos and/or articles they could read to get a better idea of what I do.

The last time I did this, I took my other team on this journey while I, too, was also going on this journey, so it was easier. This time, however, a few years later, I have forgotten what those resources were.

Does anyone know of any good videos/articles/blog posts that give a holistic view of quality in software engineering?

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For me anything from James Bach and Michael Bolton.
As this topic is subjective, others will disagree on that.

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To be more concrete: The single definition I see universal applicable is “Quality is value to some person at some time” from Michael Bolton (Link).

This is an abstract definition. Anything more concrete depends on your context.
Some examples:

  • for some people has fast delivery a higher value than having less bugs
  • for some people has accessibility a higher value than other things
  • for some people is haven as few bugs as possible a higher value than effort and cost (imagine spacecrafts or submarines)
  • for some people is having an easy maintainable product a higher value than other things
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First thing that came to mind was this by @cassandrahl

Was it something recent like that?

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Thanks for the mention, Jesper.

This might also be useful for you, Deborah: Documentation: Quality Engineer Role FAQs | Cassandra HL

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Here’s a few quality engineering resources.

We have it on our agenda to explore this topic in general early next year, there’s an article coming on the topic soon too.

This was shared by @barryeh earlier in our Slack too: What is Quality Engineering? - by Jit Gosai

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From a programmer’s perspective, the C++ annual conference is a great resource. If C/C++ and languages is your corner of the woods this is a good update https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNi1-x4pojs

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Dan Ashby has done some really interesting talks on quality