Managing the Testing Process

Book excerpt: An updated edition of the best tips and tools to plan, build, and execute a structured test operation In this update of his bestselling book, Rex Black walks you through how to develop essential tools and apply them to your test project. He helps you master the basic tools, apply the techniques to manage your resources, and give each area just the right amount of attention so that you can successfully survive managing a test project! Offering a thorough review of the tools and resources you will need to manage both large and small projects for hardware and software, this book prepares you to adapt the concepts across a broad range of settings. Simple and effective, the tools comply with industry standards and bring you up to date with the best test management practices and tools of leading hardware and software vendors. Rex Black draws from his own numerous testing experiences-- including the bad ones, so you can learn from his mistakes-- to provide you with insightful tips in test project management. He explores such topics as: Dates, budgets, and quality-expectations versus reality Fitting the testing process into the overall development or maintenance process How to choose and when to use test engineers and technicians, contractors and consultants, and external test labs and vendors Setting up and using an effective and simple bug-tracking database Following the status of each test case The companion Web site contains fifty tools, templates, and case studies that will help you put these ideas into action--fast!