9.2The Gatekeeper Model (Old)

In the traditional model, QA sat at the end of the development pipeline:

Developers → → → → QA → → → → Release
                     ↑
               "Is it good enough?"

Characteristics of the Gatekeeper

• QA sits at the end of the pipeline
• Development "throws code over the wall" to QA
• QA finds bugs and "throws them back"
• Adversarial relationship: developers vs testers
• QA is a bottleneck by design
• Quality is QA's responsibility alone
• Success is measured by bugs found
• Testing happens in a separate "testing phase"

Why the Gatekeeper Model Failed

• Bugs found late are expensive to fix
• The adversarial dynamic hurts collaboration
• QA becomes the bottleneck for every release
• Developers do not learn from bugs because feedback comes too late
• QA burns out from the pressure of being the last line of defense
• Quality is seen as something that can be "tested in" rather than "built in"