Best Practices for the Formal Software Testing Process: A Menu of Testing Tasks

Testing is not a phase. Software developers should not simply throw software over the wall to test engineers when the developers have finished coding. A coordinated program of peer reviews and testing not only supplements a good software development process, it supports it.

A good testing life cycle begins during the requirements elucidation phase of software development, and concludes when the product is ready to install or ship following a successful system test.

Nevertheless, there is no one true way to test software; the best one can hope for is to possess a formal testing process that fits the needs of the testers as well as those of the organization and its customers.

A formal test plan is more than an early step in the software testing process -- it's a vital part of your software development life cycle. This book presents a series of tasks to help you develop a formal testing process model, as well as the inputs and outputs associated with each task. These tasks include

* review of program plans
* development of the formal test plan
* creation of test documentation (test design, test cases, test software, and test procedures)
* acquisition of automated testing tools
* test execution
* updating the test documentation
* tailoring the model for projects of all sizes

Whether you are an experienced test engineer looking for ways to improve your testing process, a new test engineer hoping to learn how to perform a good testing process, a newly assigned test manager or team leader who needs to learn more about testing, or a process improvement leader, this book will help you maximize your effectiveness.

Rodger D. Drabick is a nationally recognized quality engineering and systems testing expert with extensive experience in the Capability Maturity Model for software and process improvement. With nearly three decades in software quality assurance and testing, he has been responsible for SQA initiatives and developing process improvement action plans at companies such as Amtrak, Bell-Atlantic, the Federal Aviation Authority, Kodak, and Lockheed Martin.