1st Edition

How to Reduce the Cost of Software Testing

Edited By Matthew Heusser, Govind Kulkarni Copyright 2012
    340 Pages 40 B/W Illustrations
    by Auerbach Publications

    340 Pages 40 B/W Illustrations
    by Auerbach Publications

    Plenty of software testing books tell you how to test well; this one tells you how to do it while decreasing your testing budget. A series of essays written by some of the leading minds in software testing, How to Reduce the Cost of Software Testing provides tips, tactics, and techniques to help readers accelerate the testing process, improve the performance of the test teams, and lower costs.

    The distinguished team of contributors—that includes corporate test leaders, best paper authors, and keynote speakers from leading software testing conferences—supply concrete suggestions on how to find cost savings without sacrificing outcome. Detailing strategies that testers can immediately put to use to reduce costs, the book explains how to make testing nimble, how to remove bottlenecks in the testing process, and how to locate and track defects efficiently and effectively.

    Written in language accessible to non-technical executives, as well as those doing the testing, the book considers the latest advances in test automation, ideology, and technology. Rather than present the perspective of one or two experts in software testing, it supplies the wide-ranging perspectives of a team of experts to help ensure your team can deliver a completed test cycle in less time, with more confidence, and reduced costs.

    WHAT WILL THIS COST US?
    Is This the Right Question? - Matt Heusser
    The Cost of Quality - Selena Delesie
    Testing Economics: What is Your Testing Net Worth? - Govind Kulkarni
    Opportunity Cost of Testing - Catherine Powell
    Trading Money for Time: When Saving Money Doesn't (and When It Does) - Michael Larsen
    An Analysis of Costs in Software Testing - Michael Bolton

    WHAT SHOULD WE DO?
    Test Readiness: Be Ready to Test When the Software Is Ready to Be Tested - Ed Barkley
    Session-Based Test Management - Michael Kelly
    Postpone Costs to Next Release - Jeroen Rosink
    Cost Reduction through Reusable Test Assets - Karen Johns
    You Can't Waste Money on a Defect That Isn't There - Petteri Lyytinen

    HOW SHOULD WE DO IT?
    A Nimble Test Plan: Removing the Cost of Overplanning - David Gilbert
    Exploiting the Testing Bottleneck - Markus Gärtner
    Science-Based Test Case Design: Better Coverage, Fewer Tests - Gary Gack and Justin Hunter

    Clean Test: Suggestions for Reducing Costs by Increasing Test Craftsmanship - Curtis Stuehrenberg
    Rightsizing the Cost of Testing: Tips for Executives - Scott Barber

    Appendices:

    Immediate Strategies to Reduce Test Cost - Matt Heusser
    25 Tips to Reduce Testing Cost Today - Catherine Powell
    Is It about Cost or Value? - Jonathan Bach
    Cost of Starting Up a Test Team - Anne-Marie Charrett

    Index

    Biography

    Edited by:

    Matthew Heusser is a software process naturalist and consulting software tester. In the twelve years he has been working in technology, he has worked as a developer, project manager, and test and quality assurance lead. During that time he also managed to serve as lead organizer of the Grand Rapids’ Perl User Group. Heusser also served as lead organizer for the Great Lakes Software Excellence Conference and has presented at STAREast, the Better Software Conference, Google’s Test Automation Conference, and the Software Test Professionals Conference. In addition to speaking, Heusser is the author of the influential blog Creative Chaos (http://xndev.blogspot.com) and a contributing editor to Software Test and Quality Assurance magazine. He recently completed a contract as an evening instructor in information systems at Calvin College and served as the lead organizer of the workshop on technical debt. His first contributed work was a chapter in the book Beautiful Testing, published in 2009 by O’Reilly Media.

    Govind Kulkarni has spent seventeen years in software quality assurance and management. He is a Project Management Professional (PMP), Certified Quality Auditor (CQA), and TicK IT professional. He has worked with Fortune 500 clients, and has provided test strategy and test management solutions. He is one of the reviewers of the test maturity model integrated (TMMi), is actively doing research in model-based testing, and is devising his own test estimation method called as TPIT. These days he works as a mentor and has trained some two thousand testers all over the world. He manages his own testing Web site http://www.enjoytesting.com and is actively involved in LinkedIn and other forums. He has written more than twenty-five technical papers and is a frequent speaker at testing conferences. He can be reached at [email protected].