The article provides a description of the role of a Quality Assurance (QA) analyst in software testing projects. The main responsibilities of a QA analyst include conducting functional testing and regression testing before the customer performs their testing. The article also mentions additional tasks that may be fulfilled based on project needs and QA allocation, such as helping the customer with User Acceptance Testing (UAT), test management, functional demos, and test automation.

QA Role Description

Let’s escribes the standard role of a Quality Assurance (QA) analyst in software testing projects. The main responsibility of a QA analyst is to conduct functional testing before the customer performs their own testing. Functional testing involves evaluating the software's functionality to ensure that it meets the specified requirements. Additionally, the QA analyst assists the customer with testing tasks during Feature Sprints and User Acceptance Testing (UAT).

In this context:

• "Functional testing" refers to the process of testing the software's functionality to ensure that it works as intended.

• "Feature Sprints" typically refer to short development cycles focused on implementing specific features or functionalities within the software.

• "User Acceptance Testing (UAT)" is a phase of software testing where the software is tested in a real-world environment by the end-users to ensure that it meets their requirements.

QA Tasks and Responsibilities

The tasks and responsibilities of a QA analyst involve functional testing based on user stories, regression testing based on groups of user stories, and test management. Additionally, other tasks may be assigned based on project needs and QA allocation, such as helping with User Acceptance Testing, test management for customers without their own tools, providing functional demos for customers, basic performance testing, test automation, and reviewing acceptance criteria.

Here are main tasks QA analyst should fulfil:

• Functional Testing Based on User Stories

  • Where functional testing involves testing the software's functions or features to ensure that they work as intended and meet the requirements specified in the user stories.

  • These user stories are short, simple descriptions of a feature told from the perspective of the person who desires the new capability, usually written in non-technical language.

• Regression Testing Based on a Group of User Stories

  • "This is the process of retesting the software to ensure that recent changes or bug fixes have not adversely affected existing features. It is based on a group of user stories, which may represent related or interconnected functionalities within the software.

• Application of Test Management

  • Test management involves activities related to planning, organizing, and controlling the testing process. This includes test planning, scheduling, resource allocation, and tracking of testing activities and results.

Other tasks can be fulfilled in case of project needs and sufficient QA allocation:

• Helping customer with UAT (tips for less experienced customers)

• Helping customer with test management especially when customer has no own test management tool

• Functional demos for customer

• Basic performance testing (optional, expected for large project, support from Performance team can be needed for complex scenarios)

• Test automation for supporting development (optional, based on allocation and project needs)

• Review of Acceptance Criteria in case QA allocation is from Foundation sprint