Customer Reviews

Software Testing: A guide to the TMap Approach

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My first introduction to TMAP was in "Test Process Improvement: A Practical Step-by-Step Guide to Structured Testing" which the author co-authored. It piqued my interest, but unfortunately all of the literature on TMAP was written in Dutch. This book makes this powerful test management approach available to English speaking readers, making it invaluable.

First, a little about TMAP to explain why I think the approach is important and useful: It views testing as a process instead of a collection of procedures. The advantage is that once a process is in place it can be stabilized and improved upon. The key to testing is repeatability, and without a process there can be no repeatability. TMAP consists of four elements that combine to form a cohesive test management model:
(1) Testing life cycle that is aligned to the development life cycle. This life cycle is encapsulated within a planning and control framework that easily fits into the project management activities of the development life cycle.
(2) Testing techniques - not the techniques used in the execution of test cases, but the techniques employed for defining a test strategy, developing test specifications, and the associated artifacts. This book does cover some basic test execution techniques, but they are not the focus of the book and are not covered in great detail.
(3) Infrastructure and tools - addresses what are the minimums for an effective test process in the form of environments and tools. If you're establishing a test organization this aspect will be invaluable.
(4) Organization - how the test organization is structured and how it relates to external functions, such as development, configuration and release management, project management and other major stakeholders.

Each of the above elements and their parts are covered in great detail, resulting in a sound framework for test management. That alone makes this book invaluable, but there are some additional gems that I especially liked:
- Test point analysis and estimation, which is an estimating method for test effort that is based on function point analysis. This is incredibly valuable because accurate estimation is one of the shortfalls in testing. This alone is reason to buy the book.
- The wealth of checklists - I especially liked the comprehensive list of quality characteristics.
- Testing in maintenance situations - probably the most common situation for software testing and this book covers it well.

This book and the related one titled "Test Process Improvement: A Practical Step-by-Step Guide to Structured Testing" combine to give a complete picture of test management and test process improvement. I recommend both, as well as "Systematic Software Testing" by Rick D. Craig and Stefan P. Jaskiel which lays the foundation for, and is consistent with, both TPI and TMAP.

I haven't got a lot to add (the previous review was pretty thorough), but it may help to have another viewpoint.

Firstly, I was 'forced' to use TMap. I was designing test plans for SAP using the 'V-model', but my employer at the time insisted that we had to 'switch' to TMap as it was being used by a large subsidiary overseas and they were loving it. I wasn't happy, but bought the book as it seemed the only way to learn about it.

What I discovered is TMap does not stop you using V-model approaches. In fact it doesn't really 'stop' you doing anything. What it really gives you is a broad framework for interrelating test entities and assets, supporting highly efficient programme level testing and really assisting with shared services, when you have to regression test following changes or new people using the service. If this is what you want to do, then this is the book.

So what about the book? Well, it is the best TMap book there is, although there is not much competition. It does get a little self involved in places and a few really good examples would have worked wonders, but overall I found it to provide excellent support.

I would NOT recommend this book unless you are seriously into testing. If you are a manager then get one of your senior testers, someone involved in designing test plans for complex programmes, to read it and precis it for you. I am giving it 5 stars for test professionals involved in designing major programmes as that is really its market.