Who is in charge of delivering software quality at your business?

Here's an excerpt I've taken from my latest book, "The Ultimate Guide to the SDLC:"

Quality is everyone’s responsibility. Everyone means all stakeholders and project team members. Quality is not the responsibility of or owned by a single group or department. Everyone means everyone! Every person in an organization contributes to the achievement of quality in the following ways:

• Process Quality: the achievement of quality in the activities in which any person is involved
• Product Quality: the contribution to the overall achievement of quality in each artifact being produced

There's a big difference between quality assurance and quality control. Quality Control focuses on the product or deliverable, is reactive and emphasizes testing of products to uncover defects after the fact, in other words, after the product is built. Quality Assurance focuses on the process, is proactive, attempts to improve and stabilize production and associated processes to avoid or at least minimize issues that lead to defects in the first place. Quality assurance begins at project inception and is a continuous process throughout a product's life cycle.

If you'd like to learn more or improve your quality processes, my book is available for immediate download at http://www.ultimatesdlc.com/.