Managing the Testing Process: Practical Tools and Techniques for Managing Hardware and Software Testing

Chapter 11. Testing in Context: Economics, Life Cycles, and Process Maturity

In the last ten chapters, I explained the key tools, techniques, and approaches that I use to manage my testing projects. At the risk of sounding arrogant, I would say that, based on the response to the first edition of this book, people at my test management courses, and others to whom I've sent these templates, these ideas have worked for lots of test managers in some form of another. Therefore, I trust that you too will find a way to put them to work.

An important part of adapting these ideas to your particular situation is understanding the context in which you're working. Testing does not happen for its own sake, in a vacuum, because we're merely intellectually curious about the quality of some system— at least I've never been paid to do that. Rather, organizations pay for testing—they invest in testing—to realize benefits. If the project management team has realistic expectations, they'll invest in testing as part of a larger investment in quality. (In other words, the project management team should understand that the mere act of testing does not make bugs go away or reduce the number of bugs developers put in the system.) This investment in quality can yield benefits such as an improved reputation for quality; lower post-release maintenance costs; smoother release cycles; increased confidence that the system will work well for users and satisfy customers; protection from lawsuits initiated by ...