In my 23 years of experience, I’ve consistently observed that the biggest challenges often revolve around changing entrenched beliefs within an organization. QA, fundamentally, is about assuring quality through a systemic approach. However, implementing system-wide changes in QA processes often requires stakeholders’ agreement, and this is where the challenges typically arise.
One significant hurdle is the influence of beliefs on decision-making. Despite the rational frameworks we try to apply, human decision-making is often guided by beliefs and biases, as evidenced by the work of Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman. In my experience, some stakeholders, particularly top managers with MBA backgrounds [#1], tend to hold onto certain beliefs that are resistant to change.
Three beliefs I’ve found particularly challenging to address are:
Empiricism combined with Taylorism: a belief that “everything can be quantified” and “if it can’t be measured, it can’t be managed”. As Edward Deming said, the most important things cannot be measured. However, most managers still believe they must be monitoring the velocity or even the number of bugs found by the QC folks.
Reductionism: A reductionist approach denies the emergent qualities of systems, focusing instead on individual components. Most managers want teams, and yet they do things like regular 1-1s [#2] or gamification of individual efforts [#3].
Cargo Cultism: This is the belief that adopting practices from successful companies like Google will automatically replicate their success. Such an approach ignores the unique context and culture of an organization, leading to the implementation of practices that may not suit its specific needs.
The difficulty in changing these entrenched beliefs is compounded by two psychological phenomena: the backfire effect [#4] and mental sets [#5].
The backfire effect occurs when people are presented with evidence or arguments that contradict their beliefs, but instead of changing their views, they double down on their original beliefs. The more people are accustomed to working in a certain way, the more reinforced their beliefs become. When these beliefs are challenged, it can trigger a defensive reaction, leading them to strengthen their commitment to these beliefs, even in the face of contradictory evidence. Try telling a manager that performance reviews should be abandoned as they are detrimental to software quality [#6] :)
I don’t believe there’s one-size-fits-all solution to the challenges I’ve described.
To sum it up: I believe that the real challenge in QA transcends technical expertise, extending into the realms of psychology, communication, and organizational behavior. Recognizing the uniqueness of each context is crucial in formulating effective strategies and fostering a culture of quality and continuous improvement.
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