The Tester's Pocketbook
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The Tester's Pocketbook

About the Book

The first aim of this book is to provide a brief introduction to the discipline called testing. Quite a lot of the information and training on testing is technical, bureaucratic, complicated or dated. This Pocketbook presents a set of Test Axioms that will help you determine what your testing mission should be and how to gain commitment and understanding from your management. The technical stuff might then make more sense to you.

The second aim of this Pocketbook is to provide a handy reference, an aide memoire or prompter for testing practitioners. But it isn’t a pocket dictionary or summary of procedures, techniques or processes. When you are stuck for what to do next, or believe there’s something wrong in your own or someone else’s testing or you want to understand their testing or improve it, this Pocketbook might be of help. It will prompt you to ask some germane questions of yourself, your team, your management, stakeholder or supplier.

About the Author

Paul Gerrard
Paul Gerrard

Paul Gerrard is a consultant, teacher, author, webmaster, programmer, tester, conference speaker, rowing coach and publisher. He has conducted consulting assignments in all aspects of software testing and quality assurance, specialising in test assurance. He has presented keynote talks and tutorials at testing conferences across Europe, the USA, Australia, South Africa and occasionally won awards for them.

Educated at the universities of Oxford and Imperial College London, he is a Principal of Gerrard Consulting Limited, the host of the UK Test Management Forum and the Programme Chair for the 2014 EuroSTAR testing conference.

In 2010 he won the EuroSTAR Testing Excellence Award and in 2013 he won the inaugural TESTA Lifetime Achievement Award.

He's the author of several books including "Risk-Based E-Business Testing" with Neil Thompson, "The Business Story Method" with Susan Windsor and "Lean Python".

Table of Contents

  • Preface
    • Aims of the Pocketbook
    • Testing is easy, isn’t it?
    • Context-neutral
    • Test Axioms
    • Stakeholder obsessed
    • Structure
    • Acknowledgements
  • 1. What do we Mean by Testing?
    • We Test Systems
    • We are all Testers; We are all Tested
    • The Purpose of Testing
    • The Definition of Test
    • The definition of testing
  • 2. The Equation of Testing
    • Deriving a Test Approach
    • Fundamental Development Process
    • The First Equation of Testing
  • 3. Stakeholder Axioms
    • Stakeholder
    • Value
    • Scope Management
    • Good-Enough
  • 4. Test Design Axioms
    • Test Model
    • Test Basis
    • Oracle
    • Coverage
    • Prioritisation
    • Fallibility
  • 5. Test Delivery Axioms
    • Confidence
    • Repeat-Test
    • Execution Sequencing
    • Environment
    • Event
    • Never-Finished
  • 6. Evaluating and Improving Testing
    • Process-model-based improvement
    • Goal-directed improvement
    • Using the axioms to evaluate testing
    • Test assessment by enquiry
    • Making change happen
  • 7. Conducting a Test Assessment
    • Stakeholder
    • Value
    • Scope Management
    • Good-Enough
    • Test Model
    • Test Basis
    • Oracle
    • Coverage
    • Prioritisation
    • Fallibility
    • Confidence
    • Repeat-Test
    • Execution Sequencing
    • Environment
    • Event
    • Never-Finished
  • 8. A Final Word
  • Gerrard Consulting
  • Further Information
    • Contacting the Author
    • Ordering copies of the Tester’s Pocketbook
    • Custom versions of The Tester’s Pocketbooks

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