Quality Engineer

Definition

Quality Engineer

the role that is played when a person independently performs quality engineering tasks on one or more endeavers

Classification

As illustrated in the preceding figure, Quality Engineer is part of the following inheritance hierarchy:

• Type: Concrete
• Superclass: Engineer
• Subclasses:
  • None

Responsibilities

The typical role-specific responsibilities of a Quality Engineer are to:

• Determine the requirements for the quality engineering activity on the endeavor in order to plan the performance of its component tasks.
• Ensure the quality of the endeavor process and work products:
  • Quality Assurance.
    Independently assess the quality of the endeavor-specific process by performing:
    • Process inspections.
    • Project debrief walkthroughs.
  • Quality Quality.
    Independently assess the quality of the work products by performing:
    • Work product inspections.
    • Quality audits of milestone baselines.

Quality Engineer typically inherits the general role responsibilities from the Role method component.

Expertise

To fulfill these responsibilities, quality engineers typically should have the following expertise, training, and knowledge:

• Deep knowledge of and expertise in quality engineering tasks, techniques, and tools.
• Solid knowledge of the endeavor-specific process.

Tasks

Quality engineers typically perform the following role-specific tasks in an iterative, incremental, parallel, and time-boxed manner:

• Quality Assurance:
  • Reviews:
    • Initiation Review
    • Construction Review
    • Delivery Review
    • In-Progress Review
  • Walkthroughs:
    • Endeavor Debrief Walkthrough
• Quality Control:
  • Quality Evaluations:
    • Quality Control - Business Strategy Evaluation
    • Quality Control - Technology Strategy Evaluation
    • Quality Control - Digital Branding Evaluation
    • Quality Control - Environments Evaluation
    • Quality Control - Requirements Evaluation
    • Quality Control - Architecture Evaluation
    • Quality Control - Design Evaluation
    • Quality Control - Implementation Evaluation
    • Quality Control - Integration Evaluation
    • Quality Control - Test Evaluation
    • Quality Control - Deployment Evaluation
  • Quality Audits:
    • Initiation Audit
    • Construction Audit
    • Delivery Audit

Quality Engineer typically inherits common role tasks from the role method component.

Teams

Quality Engineers typically perform these tasks as members of the following teams:

• Quality Team
• Evaluation Teams:
  • Requirements Evaluation Team
  • Architecture Evaluation Team
  • Database Evaluation Team
  • Software Evaluation Team
  • Enviroments Evaluation Team

Work Products

As members of these teams, quality engineers typically produce all or part of the following work products:

• Quality Work Products:
  • Quality Plan
  • Process Inspection Checklist
  • Audit Report
  • Inspection Report
  • Inspection Summary Report

Guidelines

• Practically everyone on an endeavor plays the quality engineer role at some time, even if it is only during an inspection. The quality engineer job title refers to someone who spends all of his or her time performing the quality engineer role.
• It is important that the quality engineer performs his or her tasks independently of the developers who use the process being audited or work product(s) being evaluated.
• This role typically inherits the common team guidelines from the roles method component.