Most teams think QA means "catching bugs." But that’s not QA. That’s QC, quality control, and by the time it finds a defect, you’re already paying for it. True QA is about preventing defects before they’re coded. It starts at the beginning of the SDLC: reviewing requirements, identifying gaps in logic, validating edge cases, and ensuring clarity before a single line is written. QC finds defects after the fact. QA builds quality in from the start. If your team only sees QA as a post-dev activity, you're missing the real opportunity: faster releases, fewer defects, and a cleaner handoff between teams.
Quality Control vs. Quality Assurance in Projects
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Summary
Quality control and quality assurance are distinct yet complementary approaches used in projects to ensure high standards. Quality control (QC) focuses on identifying and fixing issues in final outputs, while quality assurance (QA) emphasizes proactive process improvements to prevent defects from occurring in the first place.
- Understand quality assurance: Focus on designing efficient processes, setting clear quality standards, and conducting regular audits to prevent issues before they arise during any project.
- Implement quality control: Prioritize testing and inspecting finished products or services to identify defects and ensure output complies with established standards.
- Combine both approaches: Build quality into processes through QA and back it up with QC to deliver reliable, high-quality results in your projects.
Summarized by AI based on LinkedIn member posts
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Co-founder @ LeanSuite | I build the software that replaces your CI spreadsheets | Follow me for daily Lean & CI insights | Changing the way you think about Lean & Continuous Improvement
25,283 followersQuality Check vs Quality Assurance. One catches problems. One prevents them. Most companies are stuck in quality check mode: QUALITY CHECK (Reactive): ↳ End-of-line inspection ↳ Pass/fail decisions ↳ Sorting good from bad ↳ "Find the bad parts" mindset ↳ High cost of poor quality QUALITY ASSURANCE (Proactive): ↳ Process design and control ↳ Prevention planning ↳ System audits ↳ "Build quality into the process" mindset ↳ Consistent, predictable quality The brutal reality? Quality checks feel productive but create expensive illusions. You're paying people to find problems you could have prevented. You're sorting defects you shouldn't have made. You're inspecting quality instead of building it. Quality assurance asks different questions: "How do we design processes that can't produce defects?" "What systems ensure consistent quality?" "How do we prevent problems before they occur?" The evolution is simple: Quality Check: "Inspect quality in" Quality Assurance: "Build quality in"