ABSTRACT As software development accelerates, traditional quality assurance (QA) models—often reliant on late‐phase testing and centralized control—struggle to keep pace with agile methodologies. This creates tension between development speed and sustained product quality. Modern organizations increasingly explore alternative quality paradigms to improve responsiveness, reduce defect rates, and promote team‐level ownership. This study investigates the Quality Assistance approach as a modern quality management model that integrates testing responsibilities into agile development workflows. The paper aims to analyze its conceptual structure, practical relevance, and applicability by drawing insights from industry experiences and literature. A combined method of literature synthesis and secondary analysis of two publicly documented industry applications (Atlassian and ClearScore) is used. The study explores how QA roles evolve, how organizational structures change, and what outcomes are observed when transitioning to a Quality Assistance model. The findings suggest that Quality Assistance helps reduce testing bottlenecks, enhances developer accountability, and enables scalability without expanding traditional QA teams. The shift to shared quality ownership supports faster feedback loops and better aligns with agile values. Challenges during adoption include cultural resistance and lack of testing expertise among developers. Quality Assistance offers a compelling alternative to traditional QA in agile contexts by embedding quality into the development process. While it is not universally applicable, organizations with mature agile practices and strong developer engagement may benefit significantly. The study contributes a structured understanding of Quality Assistance and strategic recommendations for adoption.
Şit et al. (Wed,) studied this question.