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Rating: 
Summary: Testing - From inception to delivery - "How to do" book
Review: Critical Testing process is a book for the new test manager as well as a book for the test manager looking to refine what his or her process of testing is all about. What I liked about the book is it takes you through a fictitious company, Sumatra, whose is about to upgrade and introduce a new enhancement to their software. It is a dialog between the test managers, testers, program management, and VPs of the company. It's like reading a story with a narrator in the background commenting on what is going on. But then breaks off from the scenes talks about what was going on, and the reasons why these things had to happen that way.As the first chapter starts out - getting the big picture. The biggest thing I have found with Test managers who are struggling in their field is not getting their test group involved - involved I mean from start - at the requirements and implementation phase, versus toward the end, where its almost too late. The next few chapters go through is estimation and planning, as what we (test managers / test leaders) should all do is go through and then analyze the risks, come up with some estimation of time, and cost of the project. Then the ultimate, sell it too management where the project is most likely already over budgeted. Finally the sell tactic - to gain support for the test effort. Assuming you have made it through all that planning, the next chapters talk about hiring and putting together a good test team and implementing the test cycle for what amounts to what you will be testing. The next few chapter talk about the testing, everything from the release criteria handoff to executing test cases, reporting on the progress of testing, leveraging the opportunities and hitting some of the pitfalls. Ending with a summary of what the book was about, and putting it all together. Some of the books I have read, I walk away with, how can I apply this book to what I am doing. This is a book where it is like a reference guide, where I can look up and gain a possible solution quickly as to how address my everyday scenarios in my test department. Or, as I have done already through ww.stickyminds.com web site, is recommend it to those new test managers who are trying to quickly get a department going, but want to do it correctly.
Rating:
Summary: Testing - From inception to delivery - "How to do" book
Review: Critical Testing process is a book for the new test manager as well as a book for the test manager looking to refine what his or her process of testing is all about. What I liked about the book is it takes you through a fictitious company, Sumatra, whose is about to upgrade and introduce a new enhancement to their software. It is a dialog between the test managers, testers, program management, and VPs of the company. It's like reading a story with a narrator in the background commenting on what is going on. But then breaks off from the scenes talks about what was going on, and the reasons why these things had to happen that way. As the first chapter starts out - getting the big picture. The biggest thing I have found with Test managers who are struggling in their field is not getting their test group involved - involved I mean from start - at the requirements and implementation phase, versus toward the end, where its almost too late. The next few chapters go through is estimation and planning, as what we (test managers / test leaders) should all do is go through and then analyze the risks, come up with some estimation of time, and cost of the project. Then the ultimate, sell it too management where the project is most likely already over budgeted. Finally the sell tactic - to gain support for the test effort. Assuming you have made it through all that planning, the next chapters talk about hiring and putting together a good test team and implementing the test cycle for what amounts to what you will be testing. The next few chapter talk about the testing, everything from the release criteria handoff to executing test cases, reporting on the progress of testing, leveraging the opportunities and hitting some of the pitfalls. Ending with a summary of what the book was about, and putting it all together. Some of the books I have read, I walk away with, how can I apply this book to what I am doing. This is a book where it is like a reference guide, where I can look up and gain a possible solution quickly as to how address my everyday scenarios in my test department. Or, as I have done already through ww.stickyminds.com web site, is recommend it to those new test managers who are trying to quickly get a department going, but want to do it correctly.
Rating:
Summary: Critical Testing Processes: An excellent book
Review: Critical Testing Processes is a book that every test manager or aspiring test manager should read. This book describes a number of testing processes that are critical for the success of any test organization and, in broader context, the whole organization.
Main feature of the book is the interactive manner in which it presents the material. It mixes the theory with real life scenarios. Jamal Brown is a testing manager around whom this book revolves. This book is the story of his adventure. The book presents the theory followed by a real life scenario in Jamal's life or a real life scenario followed by the theory. Jamal is found introspecting (and you can 'read' his thoughts :-), negotiating, discussing and motivating. His encounters with his peers, managers, and his team are insightful. He not only coaches his team, he also learns from them and along with him learns the reader.
The book is divided into four parts: Plan, Prepare, Perform, and Perfect. These four parts describe some of the twelve testing processes that are critical to any testing project. Each process is explained with the help of a checklist which is tracked to completion in the course of reading the book. The critical testing processes described in this book are:
Part I (PLAN)
This part describes the overall testing process, the context within which it fits and its various nuances. These chapters cover various types of lifecycle models, how testing fits in, different types of testing team organizations, planning based in analysis of quality risks, methods to estimate effort and the cost of testing and not testing. The processes covered are:
1. Overall test process
2. Test lifecycle adaptation process
3. Quality risk analysis process
4. Test estimation process
5. Test planning process
Part II (PREPARE)
This part deals with 'preparing' for the next set of activities. Preparation involves assessing the team strengths and weaknesses, methods and ways to strengthen the team, the 'hiring' process as well as valuable advice on what to look for when hiring. For a testing manager this part has very interesting material on team management, team building, growth paths and career development that every test manger wants to know but is afraid to ask. This part also deals with the test design and evaluation process and on how to improve the efficiency by organizing and reusing tests.
6. Test team-building process
7. Test development process
Part I and II together form roughly 3/5 of the book.
Part III (PERFORM)
This part deals with the test release process, the handoff/signoff and responsibilities of various groups involved in releases. It also covers the test execution process, what to test when and how to record the progress.
8. Test release deployment process
9. Test execution process
Part IV (PERFECT)
This part deals with test reporting including defect reporting, test results reporting and improving the overall testing process. Defect reporting focuses on how to deliver effective defect reports, how to interact with developers etc. This section is a must read for neophyte testers and team leads. The test results reporting process focuses on what to report, how to report and when to report. The overall testing process improvement looks at various aspects of the overall testing process, how they can be improved and sums up the things discussed in the book.
10. Bug reporting process
11. Test results reporting process
12. Test change management process At the end of every chapter there is a section 'Implement improvements' that gives hints and directions on the possible improvements. It tries to make you think about what has been presented and how the process could be improved. An excellent book that will definitely test professionals be they at the beginning or the top of testing and test management ladder.
Rating:
Summary: Practical and powerful
Review: Critical Testing Processes is excellent. As usual, Rex Black offers testing information based on methods he's found to be successful, so you know you aren't just reading about abstract theories. This book is full of practical and usable solutions to common problems. Whether you've been in testing for a long time, are just starting out, or are curious about what it is those testing people do, this book delivers. The story of a testing team, woven throughout the book, helps to provide an understanding of how the methods discussed in the book can apply to real-life scenarios. The issues and problems faced by the team in the story are those we commonly face in the industry, and the solutions they use provide workable models for the same issues I face in my work. My first read through was cover-to-cover, which I recommend because you get the full spectrum of the testing story, from start to finish. However, I now pick up the book and dig into any relevant chapter, as a reference when I'm trying to solve a specific problem. That is the real power of this book...it isn't a one-time read, it's an ongoing guide, useful project after project.
Rating:
Summary: Practical and powerful
Review: Critical Testing Processes is excellent. As usual, Rex Black offers testing information based on methods he's found to be successful, so you know you aren't just reading about abstract theories. This book is full of practical and usable solutions to common problems. Whether you've been in testing for a long time, are just starting out, or are curious about what it is those testing people do, this book delivers. The story of a testing team, woven throughout the book, helps to provide an understanding of how the methods discussed in the book can apply to real-life scenarios. The issues and problems faced by the team in the story are those we commonly face in the industry, and the solutions they use provide workable models for the same issues I face in my work. My first read through was cover-to-cover, which I recommend because you get the full spectrum of the testing story, from start to finish. However, I now pick up the book and dig into any relevant chapter, as a reference when I'm trying to solve a specific problem. That is the real power of this book...it isn't a one-time read, it's an ongoing guide, useful project after project.
Rating:
Summary: When the Planning is Everything...
Review: Rex Black helps you think about how testing can help your projects. In particular, the planning chapters (using the running example project) make many of the planning and risk management issues obvious. This book will help you determine which activities make sense for you to perform, how to analyze quality risks, how to estimate the work, and how to speak the language of the business (return vs. cost). If you only read the first seven chapters, you'll be farther ahead in your thinking about testing and preparing your group to test than you ever were before. The prepare chapters (8-11) help you determine which people to select for your team, and how to prepare your test infrastructure, considering that test managers always have limited budgets, people, or time. A particularly valuable piece of the perform chapters (12-13) is the discussion of how to manage the test builds, who owns what -- how to remove confusion from "which build do I test now?" to an organized plan of handoffs. And in the perfect chapters, if you've been looking for a way to teach how to write test reports, chapter 14 is your answer. If you're a manager, you'll use this book on every project, even if you only review the checklists to see if you've missed anything. If you'd like to become a test manager, read this book. Rex describes numerous ways of managing the testing and working with your peers across the organization, to become successful. I highly recommend this book, whether you're starting a project, in the middle of a project, or completing one.
Rating:
Summary: An Excellent "How To Implement" a Good Testing Process
Review: Rex Black's latest book, "Critical Testing Processes" belongs in every test engineering library. Rex's book is logically organized; Part I, Prepare, embraces Chapters 1 through 7. He begins with a discussion of Planning, the first phase in the testing lifecycle, focusing on Quality Risks to assist test planning, He provides one of the best step-by-step examples I've seen to develop a test estimate. Rex sets the stage for us by showing how testing fits into the larger project context, and defining a 15-step testing process. He defines the context of his case study on the Sumatra project. In this chapter, Rex shows one of the nicer examples of the classic "V-Model" relating the development and testing lifecycles.
In Chapter 2, Rex explores the subject of Analyzing Quality Risks as the basis for his test planning, and shows a variety of templates and techniques that will assist the reader in performing this process, and links them to his case study. Note that using Quality Risks may have to be coupled with requirements/feature coverage on contracts with a government customer.
I believe that Chapter 3 (Gaze into the Crystal Ball; Estimate the Work Ahead), is one of the most helpful guides to Test Estimating that I've seen. Rex provides a variety of templates to assist folks unfamiliar with building a testing estimate.
Chapter 4 shows how testing provides "value-add", and gives the reader insight into aligning the initial estimate with the financial constraints of the project. Rex discusses ways to reduce cost by focusing testing based on the Quality Risks, in the context of the Sumatra case study. Templates, spreadsheets, and methods for calculating testing cost and return on investment are supplied.
In Chapter 5 Rex shows how to take the realistic estimate that was created and sell it to the project team. He also has a section titled "Predict with Honesty", which emphasizes the necessity for Ethics in our business.
Chapter 6 discusses the significant efforts in continuous test planning, It uses a variety of excellent figures to illustrate the author's points; however, note that there are 2 Figure 6-5's in this chapter, which results in the remaining figures being mis-numbered.
Chapter 7 goes into detail on how to get stakeholder support for the Test Plan. The Test Plan is the keystone for successful testing. Rex also provides an interesting section on what to do "When Key Players Don't Support the Test Plan" and how to work in a regulated (e.g., export restrictions) environment.
Chapters 8 through 11 are the section titled "Prepare". Chapter 8 on hiring testers is another area of the book not dealt with in many texts, but is extremely critical to successful testing. There are several parallels here to the Perry/Rice book "Surviving the Top Ten Challenges of Software Testing".
In Chapter 9 Rex provides pointers to career growth in a testing team, and assessing skills of the team members. He gives some tips on creating job definitions. He also addresses the challenges posed by having to accept team members other managers don't want, and use of contractors and consultants. Good chapter!
Chapter 10 gets back into the more technical side of test management. Through his Sumatra case study, he provides some insights into stress testing, and use and support of test tools.
In Chapter 11 Rex discusses details of approaches to test coverage, test design, selection and implementation of automated tools. He also takes some time to discuss approaches to "vague requirements", which is a problem most of us face.
Chapters 12 and 13 are Part III, Perform. Rick provides an excellent discussion of management of test releases in Chapter 12. This discussion is nicely illustrated through the case study. Note that you need to have the ability and a mechanism to UNINSTALL any release.
In Chapter 13 Rex defines a test execution process, and then goes on to show how that process works. He defines a set of test tracking worksheets, and illustrates use of the process and the worksheets on "the Big Build".
Chapters 14 through 17 are Part IV. Rex defines the Bug Reporting process. He describes use of this process through application to "the Big Build". He goes on to show how to, and how NOT to, report bugs, and emphasizes the necessity of describing one symptom per bug report. One caution in this chapter; Rex uses shaded boxes to emphasize points. Several of these boxes were misplaced in the book assembly process, so the reader needs to use care in navigation on pages 391 through 394.
The title of Chapter 15 seems a little misleading to me, in that it doesn't deal with writing a Test Summary Report (IEEE definition), but rather with the critical, on-going process of reporting test metrics. Rex focuses on describing the creation of a "test dashboard", and use of that dashboard for providing a succinct delivery of test status. Rex describes what I believe are a useful set of metrics charts. Unfortunately, the book assembly process resulted in Figures 15-2 and 15.3 being reversed, which led to much confusion on my initial read.
In Chapter 16 Rex discusses change management as it applies to bug fixes. The Sumatra case study is used to provide an informative view into the change management process. Rex notes that such a process must balance considerations of features, schedule, budget, and quality by assessing impacts from all project groups.
Rex concludes his book with Chapter 17 with some thoughts as to how testing can provide value.
Rex finishes up with a Glossary that defines his terms.
A suggestion for the interested reader. Read Rex's book in concert with the book from Drabick titled "Best Practices for the Formal Software Testing Process: A Menu of Testing Tasks". Drabick's book shows the reader "What to Do"; Rex Black's book shows "How to implement the What".
Rating:
Summary: The test manager's toolbox just got richer...
Review: Sometimes a book comes along that just has to become part of your virtual profesional toolbox. Mr. Black has just given us poor testers another such book.
For me this book provides me with all the tips and tricks that I need during a project and that I would have to think of myself instead of just picking up this book and reading about them.
Even better, I now have an excellent source of course materials for our test engineers. Mr. Black explains and justifies every aspect of the testing process just about perfect and his gift for the metaphor makes this book a good evening read.
The checklist approach that he employs is a great planning aid. Our projections are much more precise this method.
I have added this book to our technical library for this project, and I will insist on making it part of every future test project that I will be part of. That is until Mr. Back publishes his next book.
Rating:
Summary: A creditable story
Review: This book is written for the test manager and/or project manager who oversees one or more testing efforts. The author has done a great job of taking his own personal experiences (good and bad) gleaned from years of "in the trenches" work, and threading them together into a single fictional story that he uses to illustrate his proven method of managing testing projects.
Part 1 (Chapters 1 to 7) talks about the stuff you need to do to Plan for a testing effort, such as; convincing senior management that spending money on testing is a good Return On Investment (ROI), how to get a realistic ballpark estimate for how long the testing is likely to take, and when & who should get involved in the project.
Part 2 (Chapters 8 to 11) deals with Preparing for test execution; selecting test strategies & techniques, putting a testing team together (and keeping them together), and determining the appropriate measure(s) of test coverage
Parts 3 & 4 (Chapters 12 to 17) first focuses on perhaps the most stressful phase of a testing project - test execution. When the "heat of battle" is most intense; it's useful to have examples, templates, and checklists that a test manager can draw upon to help them manage and report on the test execution in a controlled and credible manner. The book then wraps-up by discussing process improvement; what went well, and what could have been improved (no witch hunts please!). In summary, I believe Rex has built a very comprehensive and detailed composite documentary on how he has defined and deployed the most critical processes needed to support a software testing effort. In the vain of "full disclosure", you should know that I've known Rex for many years, and consequently I cannot be considered a completely impartial reviewer.
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