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Managing the Testing Process
Review
An easy to read book written for someone who is currently, or about to manage a testing team. The author has spent 14 years in testing and quality assurence. The book is based on the author's experiences and is realistic in its expectations of what will happen in a real-life test project.
The book includes descriptions of how to develop some essential tools and apply them to a test project. The author describes the people management techniques that can help you get the resources from your manager that you'll need in order to succeed, as well as how to deal with your peers within the organisation. The descriptions and examples given for a hardware and a software project.
Note however, that the book deals with managing the testing process. It covers what you'll need to test and at a superfical level how to go about testing, but it does not provide detailed test cases, details of how to develop them or what a specific test case should include.
Brief Description of Contents
| Chap. 1. | Defining What's on Your Plate: The Foundation of a Test System
This chapter helps you determine what you might test, what you should test and what you can test. Describes test granularity, test execution phases; informal methods for assessing quality risks, a formal method for understanding quality risks (Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA)); and tips on scheduling, resource planning and budgeting.
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| Chap. 2. | Plotting and Presenting Your Course: The Test Plan
Presents a practical approach to writting a test plan for a project. Covers why you need to write a test plan; how many test plans to write; provides a test plan template and descriptions of its contents; and how to sell the plan to project management and the development team.
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| Chap. 3. | Test System Architecture, Cases and Coverage
Describes the specifics of building a test system. The chapter
- describes some essential definitions,
- describes the basic operation of a model system,
- provides a method for defining test cases,
- presents a test case template,
- examines the level of detail required to write test cases,
- describes different approaches (prioritising, dynamic prioritising, shotgunning, railroading) to measure coverage and avoid "Test Escapes", coverage and regression test gaps.
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| Chap. 4. | Your Exciting Career in Entomology: The Bug Tracking Database
Describes why you need a bug tracking database and what it should contain; bug report, ranking (severity, priority & Risk Priority Numbers), bug states, ownership, history, subsystem, configuration, close date, resolution and root cause.
As an aside the chapter describes how a bug report should be written and what it should and should not include and the important difference between bug isolation and debugging.
The chapter describes how the bug data collected can be used; (Opened/closed chart, Root cause chart, Closure period chart, Subsystem chart).
The chapter concludes with a review of managing bug tracking and the politics related to bug data.
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| Chap. 5. | Managing Test Cases: The Test Tracking Spreadsheet
Introduces the Test Tracking Spreadsheet - a "to do" list with status tracking and summary capabilities. |
| Chap. 6. | Tips and Tools for Crunch Time: Managing the Dynamic
Deals with the realities of the test process once it is underway. The chapter starts with observations on "crunch mode" and some tips on how to survive it.
The chapter introduces two tools designed to help you manage the testing processes. One is a logistics database to track the locations, configurations and test requirements for hardware, software, infrastructure and staff. The second is a simple change management database to help you respond to the changes that occur during the test project.
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| Chap. 7. | Stocking and Managing a Test Lab
Discusses whether you need a test lab and covers what you'll need to get one up and running;
- selecting and planning the lab area,
- test lab inventory,
- security and asset tracking,
- managing equipment and configurations,
- human factors.
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| Chap. 8. | Staffing and Managing a Test Team
The chapter provides pointers on hiring, motivating and retaining excellent staff. The areas covered are;
- how many people to hire, what skills they should have, and what positions do they fill,
- whether to organise your staff by projects or by areas of test specialisation,
- how to pick good test engineers and avoid bad ones,
- what motivates test staff and what demotivates them,
- how to use temporary workers to help your team through tough times.
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| Chap. 9. | The Triumph of Politics: Organisational Challenges for Test Managers
Discusses how "office politics" affect how your role as a test manager is seen in the company and how to communicate with and get support from other managers.
How various organisational models will effect the operation of the test department is also discussed.
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| Chap. 10. | Involving Other Players: Distributing a Test Project
Provides advice on how to set up and operate a distributed test environment. Discusses how to;
- choose test partners based on specific testing requirements and their capabilities,
- plan the distributed effort to avoid testing gaps and cover logistics,
- manage the external testing.
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| Bibliography |
| Glossary (of testing terms) |
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