Effective Software Testing explores fifty critically important best practices, pitfalls, and solutions. Gleaned from the author's extensive practical experience, these concrete items will enable quality assurance professionals and test managers to immediately enhance their understanding and skills, avoid costly mistakes, and implement a state-of-the-art testing program.

This book places special emphasis on the integration of testing into all phases of the software development life cycle--from requirements definition to design and final coding. The fifty lessons provided here focus on the key aspects of software testing: test planning, design, documentation, execution, managing the testing team, unit testing, automated testing, nonfunctional testing, and more.

You will learn to:

• Base testing efforts on a prioritized feature schedule
• Estimate test preparation and execution
• Define the testing team roles and responsibilities
• Design test procedures as soon as requirements are available
• Derive effective test cases from requirements
• Avoid constraints and detailed data elements in test procedures
• Make unit-test execution part of the build process
• Use logging to increase system testability
• Test automated test tools on an application prototype
• Automate regression tests whenever possible
• Avoid sole reliance on capture/playback
• Conduct performance testing with production-sized databases
• Tailor usability tests to the intended audience
• Isolate the test environment from the development environment
• Implement a defect tracking life cycle

Throughout the book, numerous real-world case studies and concrete examples illustrate the successful application of these important principles and techniques.

Effective Software Testing provides ready access to the expertise and advice of one of the world's foremost software quality and testing authorities.

Elfriede Dustin is the lead author of Automated Software Testing (Addison-Wesley, 1999), and Quality Web Systems (Addison-Wesley, 2002). An acknowledged expert in software engineering and testing practices, she has assisted numerous companies in the definition and implementation of QA and testing processes. For more information, please see her Web site at www.effectivesoftwaretesting.com.