Software Quality Assurance( SQA) involves the entire software development process - monitoring and improving the process, making sure that any agreed-upon standards and procedures are followed, and ensuring that problems are found and dealt with. It is oriented to 'prevention'.

Testing involves operation of a system or application under controlled conditions and evaluating the results (eg, 'if the user is in interface A of the application while using hardware B, and does C, then D should happen'). The controlled conditions should include both normal and abnormal conditions. Testing should intentionally attempt to make things go wrong to determine if things happen when they shouldn't or things don't happen when they should. It is oriented to 'detection'.

Organizations vary considerably in how they assign responsibility for QA and testing. Sometimes they're the combined responsibility of one group or individual. Also common are project teams that include a mix of testers and developers who work closely together, with overall QA processes monitored by project managers. It will depend on what best fits an organization's size and business structure.

In most cases, IT organization may be too small or not fully equipped to have a testing staff even if the situation calls for it. In these circumstances it may be appropriate to use contractors or outsourcing. Inexperienced managers sometimes gamble on the success of a project by skipping thorough testing or having programmers do post-development functional testing of their own work, a decidedly high risk gamble.