The Tester's Pocketbook - Tapa blanda

This little Pocketbook has two aims.

The first aim is to provide a brief introduction to the discipline called testing. Have you just been told you are responsible for testing something? Perhaps it is the implementation of a computer system in your business. But you have never done this sort of thing before! 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 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.

Paul Gerrard is a consultant, teacher, author, webmaster, programmer, tester, conference speaker, rowing coach and most recently with this book - a 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, Paul was the founding chair of the BCS ISEB Testing Certificate Scheme and a member of the Working Party that produced BS 7925 - the Component Test Standard. Currently, he is Principal of Gerrard Consulting Limited, a Director of Aqastra Limited and is the host of the UK Test Management Forum.