Why ForceQA?

I face a few immediate challenges at this new place.

One of which is the fact that I'm the only one here hired to specifically represent SQA. There are a couple people here who have "done QA" in the past, but there's the notion that it was just click testing around the website and not true QA. QA in fact may be over-used or mis-used around here. We may need a new term other than QA to get them away from the notion that QA = testing.

Another is that there are a wide number of products that this company supports. Each application doesn't necessarily have a huge number of features, but there are interdependencies between some of them, and in fact, there are integrated functions that will eventually be re-factored. The ultimate goal will be to make the look and feel consistent across the whole site.

Last, but not least is the fact that there are folks here who don't see a need for SQA. In fact, there's resistance to the idea that QA can be helpful or reduce work since there's more process built into the development cycle. Today, I met an engineer in a sister company who believed that QA wasn't needed to the point that he said it "stifled growth". If this is a common belief, I have my work cut out for me.

As some of you know, my approach to QA is not to work against the development team, but to work with them. Everyone's tenet should be the same - produce high quality software - and to that end, we all have to pull in the same direction.

So, will I need to merely be forceful in adapting my QA methodologies within the company? Or force QA down these people's throats? Indeed, we'll see...