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

Hi all!

I have started to spread my wings within the company I work for into another area that hasnā€™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 ā€œscale meā€ 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.

To be more concrete: The single definition I see universal applicable is ā€œQuality is value to some person at some timeā€ 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

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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Hereā€™s a few quality engineering resources.

We have it on our agenda to explore this topic in general early next year, thereā€™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 programmerā€™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