Continuing with the series of interviewing speakers of the National Software Testing Conference, we interviewed Stephen Johnson, CEO & Founder of Roq and Founding Signatory of the Quality Engineering Charter. With over 25 years of experience in the Quality Engineering industry, he shares his strategic vision on how Quality Engineering will evolve over the next 5 years.
Q. How do you foresee the role of Quality Engineering evolving in the next 5 years?
Technological change in tooling / AI will evolve at a pace that is hard to truly project. Organisational / Political policy is likely to be tested and challenged like never before via the likely advancements, particularly in AI, so the impact on the whole delivery model could be wholesale – to a point that the question as to whether “software is needed” is real; this may mean an end to traditional software development with a steady stream of evolutions over the five-year time window.
However, what I do see happening, and what I speak to a lot of clients about, is the focus on quality as an overarching theme. Regardless of delivery, there will be more scrutiny on quality, security, and integrity. This will drive board level accountability, which usually means investment and rigour.
At a stakeholder level this means more objective setting of quality goals / objectives at the outset and great governance at all stages to ensure its being delivered and achieved. This will be more acute in highly regulated industries. This is a “hearts and minds” play.
For anyone in the Quality Engineering (QE) / Quality Assurance industry, this is likely to mean increased productivity – better tooling / techniques – but a change of emphasis in where the inherent risks are for a business and therefore how QE / QA is approached and adopted. This is exciting if you have the curiosity gene and a mindset of quality.
Q. What are the core principles of the Quality Engineering Charter and how can organisations best adopt these principles to maximise business value?
The six principles are set out below and can be digested and understood by anyone engaged in business delivery, underpinned by technology.
- Ensure quality is embedded from the outset.
- Empower a culture where everyone owns quality.
- Focus on the end goal.
- Work with risk front of mind.
- Make decisions based on quality analysis of data.
- Advocate continuous improvement.
The reason the charter was created, was that there is lots of information on the “What” and “How” of quality engineering etc. but little understanding of the “Why”. This was a frustration from senior members of the QE community who constantly face challenges from their executive/business teams on cost and cadence.
Ensuring Quality is objective, is well understood at the outset (whether product / project / programme) and is governed throughout and someone is truly accountable is the only way we’ll see business impact. The principles give the guiding rails in achieving that. It’s 100% not prescriptive, so can apply to all organisations. It’s also something that can be introduced over time and focusing on one or two will make a big difference – and that will breed greater change and improvement.
Q. Considering the evolution of technological advancements, how does quality Engineering Charter address the integration of emerging technologies?
I see AI, in particular, in three parts:
- How we utilise it to improve productivity in our QE / QA world – something that will have a big impact quite quickly.
- How we prepare and test AI in its current (and fast-moving guise); data is key and most organisations have struggled for decades on data – we now have more, so is a huge pre-cursor for success. Then there is validating the AI solutions being adopted are accurate/safe/secure/deliver “customer” experience.
- How we re-model the whole approach to quality if the need for software is reduced and/or the whole approach to technology delivery takes a seismic shift in approach – something not yet seen, but something that is being worked on by the large corporates.
Learn more about Stephen Johnson’s speaking session at the National Software Testing Conference here >> NSTC 2024 Speaker List
Edited by: Vaishnavi Nashte
For media enquiries, please contact vaishnavi.nashte@31media.co.uk
