Customer Reviews

Managing the Testing Process: Practical Tools and Techniques for Managing Hardware and Software Testing

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I very much liked the book. Rex Black has written about the process and management side of testing. This makes it an ideal complement to Cem Kaner's "Testing Computer Software" (which deals with testing technique) and Boris Beizer's "Software Testing Techniques" (which deals with the fundamentals).

I found the templates useful, mostly because I never worked my way around Excel to get those metrics in an automated manner. But don't expect them to be replacement for commercial test management tools.

This should be a required reading for anyone who plans or manages testing.

The approach and techniques given in this book will get the new test manager and his or her team quickly started with basic techniques for managing testing. The key strengths of this book include:

(1) Instructions for developing test plans, and associated test cases and reports - the material is fairly basic, but complete and consistent with good practices.

(2) An excellent discussion of, and advice for, effective management of a test team, setting priorities and managing budgets.

(3) Practical advice for setting objectives and scope within the testing process.

While this book will give the in-the-trenches test professionals a view of the 'big picture', it's more suited to managers and QA leads who are seeking guidelines for establishing the foundation of a test process, and who want to quickly implement standards for test documentation and a workflow. The book's accompanying web page provides over 50 templates, case studies and tools that can be downloaded and immediately used within your organization. In addition, the website contains a small (but growing) collection of articles, presentations and links that augment the material in this book.

Although there are a handful of other books on test management that are equal to this one, each has strengths and weaknesses - but all provide sound advice and a structured approach to managing the test process. This particular book's strengths include the downloadable documents that will save much time and effort, and the straightforward approach to basic test management. If you are trying to get a basic test process in place you won't go wrong if you select this book.

This is one of my favorite software testing books. It has an especially good chapter on metrics for evaluating the progress of your testing effort--the metrics are easy to calculate, and VERY importantly, easy to understand by--and convincing to, in my experience--the people you'll be reporting your progress to. There's also a good chapter on bug-tracking, and some discussion of how to write bug reports that I've found very useful for training new testers. Plus, there's lots of useful perspective on general management issues--hiring; the interdepartmental issues that (as far as I know) are unique to testing; etc.

I wrote this review based on the first edition--a second edition has since come out.

I found this book well written, with an engaging style for what can be a very dull subject. Not exactly what I was looking for, but I was able to glean enough nuggets to gain some benefit.

Very disappointed in the accompanying CD. Ad hoc samples appear to have been thrown together at the last minute. Simple things like a lack of data (1 record per sample database), poor data models, incorrectly documented comments and a lousy UI. Individual samples existed in a vacuum and did not tie together into a coherent whole. I would have held this book in higher regard if no CD had been included.

It would appear that Rex Black did not practise what he preaches in this case - not a good look for a testing / QA publication.

This is the only book on testing that I have found that concentrates on the management tasks associated with the testing process. Rather than just the mechanics of testing, the book covers everything from establishing and funding test teams to coordinating corporate responses, from developing plans to assuring that they succeed. Just the guide that IT managers need.

You can figure all this stuff out for yourself over five or six years, as I did, or you could read this book to get quickly up to speed. This is not a "how to test" book. This is a "how to get the test process running smoothly" book. Take it from somebody who's been testing since 1988: this is useful.

As an aspiring tester, I can say that this book is not quite what I was looking for. It didn't give me a big picture of the testing process, nor did it give me any insight into how to use effective methods. On the whole, the better book for your money is "Testing Computer Software" by Kaner, et al. Now that one is a winner. This, just so so.

My take on this book is that it`s more about creating organization within your test schedule and documentation. He goes through each step of the QA process, from documenting requirements to double-checking the results, and explains how you can spend hours upon hours of documentation for your QA efforts.

It`s useful if you have nowhere to start. It`s full of new ideas if you already have a system in place. It can help you get more out of your testing organization if you have your QA manager read it for homework.

I am a final year graduate student and I started reading this book as a part of the reading assignment for the course "Systems Testing and Verification". I found this book very valuable for the internship I am doing as a product test engineer. The book is indispesible guide for the beginner and good reference for the professionals. The real world experience of the author makes this book an appropriate guide line for all those who wants to deal with testing process. I have applied some key concepts from the book for the test cases I designed and the result was quite satisfying. I would not have come up with such a good test cases on my own without refering to this book. Its worth keeping this book as a future reference.

"Managing the Testing Process" is the book that I used as a guide when I started as a tester years ago. I found that, while it focuses on the bigger picture of test management, many of the tidbits included help me to report what I do to non-testers.

It may seem simplistic to use tools like Excel or Access to capture and report information. However, I have worked at companies that didn't want to lay out any cash for testing and testing tools. But what comes installed on most corporate desktops? Excel and Access! They are tools that are easily used and readily available for capturing metrics and generating reports. Metrics and reports are the mainstay of the testing community and demonstrate to others that testing is a critical component of the software development process.

I have recently returned to using some of Rex's reports to highlight the problems that exist in my own projects. Everywhere I have worked there seems to be a common theme that producing quality software is difficult, yet Rex's methods for collecting and reporting project statistics give the most bang for the buck when dealing with people who don't want to understand technical issues or read lengthy documents on the status of a software project.

If you are just setting up a test organization, or are new to testing yourself, this book provides everything you need in order to cover the basics. I also recommend "Managing the Testing Process" to testers just getting their feet wet, even if they're not managing a test team. This book demonstrates why testing is important and gives a good "big-picture" understanding of the artifacts that a test team should be producing.