From Quality Assurance to Quality Engineering

An HFS Research report in partnership with Wipro FullStride Cloud.

There needs to be an evolution of software testing to Quality Assurance (QA) and ultimately, Quality Engineering (QE). This transformation is not just about a transformation in tools and technology but it must include people, processes, and a cultural change.The call to action is thus fairly clear – Quality Assurance must embed itself in business objectives to support the disruptive shift to cloud native transformation and AI. This requires large-scale re-skilling of the workforce and new complex operating models.

To better understand how organizations capture business value from their investments in quality, HFS Research, in partnership with Wipro, in Q1 2023, expanded on its research for the HFS Horizon: Assuring the Generative Enterprise™, 2024 by interviewing Quality Assurance leaders of Global 2000 enterprises. This piece focuses on the transformation journey by leaders to identify best practices.

Key findings from the report are:

1. Quality Assurance for each enterprise has to be specific to the organization’s industry challenges and the maturity of the Quality Assurance function.
2. Quality Engineering must become embedded in the software development lifecycle.
3. Reskilling remains the most significant challenge. Employees must move from being mostly manual testers to quality engineers.
4. AI will augment operating model change. Thus, progressing to Quality Engineering is largely about blending business objectives with a realistic talent strategy.
5. Organizations must prepare for profound disruption through AI and to achieve those outcomes, they must design their own target operating model.