SQA practitioners have been toiling to roll their boulders up and down a formidable mountain aptly known as Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) to uphold software product excellence.  This is akin to Homer’s wisest and most prudent of mortals, Sisyphus, who was condemned by the Greek gods to ceaselessly roll a rock to the top of a mountain whence the stone would fall back of its own weight.

 Information Technology (IT) professionals have been dealt with ultra-rapid advancement in the field.  Software giant Microsoft releases upgrades to its proprietary applications every change in season while the Macintosh and Sun Microsystems folks try to draw level.  Leading Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems have come up with innovations to provide seamless integration among key business areas of large corporations.  Doing business within the boundaries of the Internet (e-Commerce) promises limitless possibilities from banking to merchandising and has never attracted much attention in recent history.

 With this extensive and continuing development in the IT industry, the significance of SQA to guarantee alignment of software design and development effort with user requirements is brought to the foreground. True enough, the trend of businesses expecting to employ integrated software products that work in various platforms has moved the discipline out of the back office to center stage.

 The IT industry is proven to be very competitive primarily because of the endless opportunities it offers to the businesses it supports.  As a compelling consequence, the clients are left, albeit not always, with better choices.  Software innovations could elicit either waves of disappointment or the coveted seal of approval from the ultimate certifiers—the end-users.  And since courting the clients’ ire is never in the agenda of a rational IT organization, it is critical to underscore the careful attention that should be drawn to the users and product specifications for every software development effort.  This is harping on the objective of ensuring that software releases satisfy the users to which fundamental advances in IT are mostly directed.

 The daunting task of Sisyphus to ceaselessly push a boulder up and down an ancient mountain translates to the perpetual and conscious adoption of established set of industry standards in both methods and processes coupled with its constant and systematic enforcement during the entire course of software development.  The undertaking of systematic enforcement of best practices is an iterative activity performed by SQA practitioners before the final product is certified as fit for release.  Aside from possessing considerable technical depth and a solid grasp of growing SQA concepts, tools, and techniques, vital to this demanding role is understanding how to lead by influence and discipline since most software development people are not very keen on being checked on a regular basis.  Figuratively, this challenge to SQA practitioners sits right down the mountain of SDLC where the boulder waits for an ample push up the steep, over and again.

Learning how to relate and effectively communicate with system developers and using this to motivate them to consistently follow the organization’s methodology and processes are traits successful SQA practitioners possess.  Equally important, SQA practitioners should team up with software project management to encourage project managers to support SQA activities in all phases of software development, especially when most of them are ex-developers or part-time developers themselves.  Understanding the psychology of system developers, obtaining the cooperation of project managers, and having knowledge of the organization’s requirements are key factors to attain SQA goals.

Recognized certification bodies like International Organization for Standardization (ISO 9000), Six Sigma (Black Belt), and Software Engineering Institute (SEI Capability Maturity Model Integration) have granted the quality seal to such organizations as Accenture, Toshiba, and GE. These quality certified companies rely heavily on high-grade software and cutting-edge processes to deliver the right products to their demanding clients.  They share the same ideal that the best results are realized by steadfast, top-down enforcement of standardization and process control parallel to the pursuit that had befallen the mythical Sisyphus.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Anna Quindlen said it brilliantly: “In the journey of sorts consider the lilies of the field. “  Albert Camus reckons that Sisyphus relishes the experience of treading on a virgin path whilst pushing the same boulder up the same mountain repeatedly.  Advocates of software quality assurance - given the different dimensions of the discipline – are committed to delivering the right systems to business organizations like the way Sisyphus had embraced his destiny, with admirable and unrelenting resolve.

Borderless business integration is today’s trend.  As software becomes the personification of businesses everywhere, the people behind SQA – armed with professionalism and fortitude – are expected to constantly carry out quality enforcement in order to achieve the ultimate in software development and register bottom-line contribution to the overall success of business organizations.