Department Spotlight: Quality Control (QC)

The buck stops here. So do the software bugs. Quick! Do you know how we develop ULTRAMAIN? Oh, sure. You probably know that developers write the code that gets compiled into ULTRAMAIN. And you may know that the Software Configuration Management (SCM) department packages and patches ULTRAMAIN. But what happens between development and SCM? The answer: ULTRAMAIN is put through the paces and run through the ringer in the Quality Control (QC) department, where U’Liana, Werner, Judy, John, Victoria, Casey and Frank test each and every change made to the software. The QC department ensures that ULTRAMAIN meets or exceeds customer requirements in commercial production environments. The entire process starts with developers. Once new code has been written, the developer writes test instructions for that change. The test instructions are essentially the blueprint for the change -- they specify what the change is, how the change should function, and how to test the change in different software environments. The QC department uses the test instructions to test the new change. If QC finds a bug, they make a note of it and send the code back to the developer to “rework.” Changes to ULTRAMAIN are released to customers only after QC rigorously tests the changes and verifies that they’re bug-free. One QC department employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said QC’s job is to try to “break” the software:

“The only quality control customers had 2,000 years ago was the saying: ‘Let the buyer beware.’ Now we have procedures and standards for testing things. Here in the office, we try to break the software. I know it sounds nuts, but that’s how we find the bugs!”

In fact, this anonymous source accurately summarizes what the QC department does on any given day. Their job, of course, consists of testing the software according to the developer’s instructions and the customer’s specifications. But they also think outside the box and attempt the use the software in ways it technically shouldn’t be used. Pushing multiple tab buttons at the same time? Check. Moving scroll bars as fast as you can? Check. Performing test instructions backwards? Um, maybe not. But you get the idea. The end goal is to ensure that ULTRAMAIN works as expected, no matter how you use it. So the next time you use ULTRAMAIN, thank the QC department for filtering those little bugs out of the software.