Review By: Alan D. Smith
04/10/2006This book provides the reader with complete coverage of techniques for improving both the speed and quality of testing: speed, as the authors promote the value of testing early in the software development lifecycle; and quality, as the authors discuss every aspect of testing including test planning, test management, and test process improvement. They start by explaining rapid testing as “testing software faster than you do now, while maintaining or improving your standards for quality.”

The book is divided into two parts. Part 1 explains rapid testing and part 2 contains approximately one hundred pages of examples.

In chapter 1 the authors introduce the reader to the concept of rapid testing. They start with basic definitions of several key areas of software testing as they relate to the software development lifecycle. These include requirements analysis, test planning, test design, implementation and debugging, and finally system and acceptance testing.

From this starting point, the authors take an in-depth look at these key phases of testing and how to improve their application to make them more efficient. They also address other key testing topics, including joint application requirements, testing metrics, and test estimation. The goal is to make testing more productive and less time consuming. As they state so clearly, “Our approach in this book will be to look at every phase of the software process from the viewpoint of a test engineer to see if there is a way to speed up the testing while maintaining or improving quality.”

Part 2 provides the reader with a complete set of examples for requirements defining, test planning, testing procedures, and systems test summary reporting.

I found this book to be one of the greatest sources of testing information I have read. I have been testing for about twelve years, and it was great to find many of the topics that I either have applied or have planned to explore in one concise book. Besides including every aspect of the testing process that many other books have touched on in the past, this book contains two topics that I have not found in as much detail in any other software testing book: requirements management and testing process improvement. The authors do an especially good job discussing requirements management and requirements traceablity. Having applied many of their concepts, I was delighted to find them so well documented from a tester’s perspective.

The authors’ explanation of The Software Engineering Institute’s Capability Maturity Model (CMM) hits the nail right on the head. They also do a great job of clarifying static testing (review of code and requirements) and dynamic testing (using the code in the traditional testing sense).

Whether you’re new to testing or an experienced tester, you will find this book an invaluable source of information. For the new tester, it covers every step of testing in as complete a description as I have found in any book. If you are already testing, you will be introduced to many new concepts that you will be able to apply to your current projects. If you have been testing for some time, you will find that this book confirms many of the thoughts you’ve probably had in your attempts to improve your testing processes.