Software quality management is a shared organizational responsibility—not a job that can be handed off entirely to QA. Leaders set priorities and provide resources; product stakeholders define needs and acceptance criteria; developers build quality into the product; testers evaluate evidence; and project managers coordinate the work. A QA or quality group can equip and guide these roles, but the organization must make ownership of acceptance, release, and risk decisions explicit.
How responsibility is divided
Quality work follows the decisions and activities needed to define, build, evaluate, and deliver a product. The roles below are useful categories, not a required org chart; one person may cover several roles, and organizations should name decision owners locally.
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| Role | Practical responsibility | Boundary |
|---|---|---|
| Organizational leadership | Set quality policy and priorities, provide resources, assign decision rights, and review whether quality management is effective. | ISO/IEC 25001 addresses planning and management of quality requirements and evaluation activities; it does not prescribe a reporting structure. See ISO/IEC 25001. |
| Product stakeholders and acquirers | Express user, business, and operational needs; define acceptable quality for the intended use; assess whether the result fulfills expected value. | ISO/IEC 25030 identifies acquirers as evaluating whether a system, software, or data fulfills expected value. See ISO/IEC 25030. |
| Developers and engineering teams | Design, implement, and test the product against expected quality, incorporating quality considerations into design and delivery. | Developers’ work complements, rather than replaces, verification by testers or independent evaluation. |
| Testers | Verify and validate whether the product meets expected quality requirements, using defined criteria and evidence. | Testing provides evidence; it does not alone decide whether residual risk is acceptable. |
| Project managers | Plan, monitor, and control the work required to achieve expected quality, including schedule and dependencies. | Quality planning must be coordinated with delivery planning, not treated as a final-stage handoff. |
| Independent evaluators | Assess the product against objective criteria when independent evaluation is needed. | The appropriate degree of independence depends on product context and organizational needs. |
| QA or evaluation group | Provide methods, documentation, training, and technical guidance; help the organization develop its evaluation capability. | This group enables quality work across the organization rather than taking ownership of product quality on everyone else’s behalf. |
QA, quality control, and testing are related—but not interchangeable
Quality assurance helps establish confidence that suitable processes and methods are in place. Testing evaluates a product against requirements and produces evidence. A quality or evaluation group may develop methods and train staff, while engineers and product stakeholders apply those methods in their own work. Calling a team “QA” does not make it solely accountable for product quality, and passing tests does not itself settle whether a release is acceptable.
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ISO/IEC 25010:2023: a shared product-quality reference
ISO/IEC 25010:2023 defines a product quality model for ICT and software products. It includes nine quality characteristics with subcharacteristics. The model can help stakeholders specify and evaluate quality properties and use them to inform requirements, design objectives, testing objectives, quality-control criteria, acceptance criteria, and measures across the lifecycle. ISO names developers, acquirers, QA and control staff, and independent evaluators among its users. It is a reference model, not a company org chart or a staffing prescription.
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The 2023 edition supersedes ISO/IEC 25010:2011. Use the 2023 edition when describing the current model; do not carry the 2011 edition’s characteristic count into it.
ISO/IEC 25001:2014: planning and managing requirements and evaluation
ISO/IEC 25001:2014 covers planning and management of quality requirements specification and evaluation. ISO’s page says it was reviewed and confirmed in 2026, so it remains current according to that page. The standard describes an evaluation group’s contributions, including motivating and training employees, preparing documents, identifying or developing methods, and responding to technology questions.
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ISO/IEC 25030:2019: quality requirements and stakeholder activities
ISO/IEC 25030:2019 provides a framework for eliciting, defining, using, and governing quality requirements. It makes the division of work concrete: acquirers assess value; developers design, implement, and test toward expected quality; testers verify and validate; project managers plan, monitor, and control; and independent evaluators assess against objective criteria.
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The standards describe useful role categories and activities, but they do not assign every organization’s final approval authority. Before delivery, document who owns each decision and what evidence is needed.
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- Quality objectives: Who translates user, business, operational, and regulatory needs into requirements?
- Evidence: Who defines what tests, reviews, or evaluations are needed, and who judges whether the evidence meets the criteria?
- Acceptance and release: Who can accept the product and authorize release?
- Residual risk: Who can accept a known quality risk or waive a criterion, and how is that decision recorded?
- Independence: Does the risk call for evaluation by the delivery team, a separate internal function, or an independent evaluator?
- Lifecycle coverage: Who maintains quality requirements through design, testing, acceptance, operation, and maintenance?
- Capability: Who maintains methods, tools, documentation, and training?
These are practical allocation questions informed by the activities in ISO/IEC 25010 and ISO/IEC 25030, not a mandatory scoring system. The right allocation depends on the product’s intended use, environment, and risk profile.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Use screenshot evidence as one part of quality work
For products that render web pages, screenshots can help teams inspect visual output and document what a user-facing page displayed at a particular point in an evaluation. A screenshot is only one kind of evidence: it does not establish that a page is secure, accessible, performant, or functionally correct. Define what the capture is meant to demonstrate and keep it alongside the relevant test criteria and other evidence.
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Bottom line for teams
Software quality management belongs to the organization as a whole. Specialists can provide structure and expertise, but quality depends on clear requirements, sound implementation, meaningful evaluation, and explicitly assigned acceptance and risk decisions across the lifecycle.
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