Review By: Noreen Dertinger
08/29/2011Testing IT is intended for all levels of software development professionals, from management down to students. The second edition has been revised to reflect current standards and includes an overview of agile best practices. It is also a good starting point for individuals considering a career in software testing.

In part one, the authors have done a good job of providing clear and concise testing guidance that can be adopted as is or customized to an organization's needs. Part two is a collection of six case studies including the British Library, Reuters Product Acceptance Group, Crown Quality Assurance Group, The Wine Society, Automatic Data Processing Limited, and Confirmit Agile Development and Testing.

This book contains many testing templates, pro formas, and checklists (appendices A to J). There are also four appendices that provide examples for the testing techniques described in chapter three. Appendices O to S provide more detailed material about topics touched on in the main body of the book, including criteria for evaluating and selecting automated software testing tools and a suggested approach to conducting such an evaluation, an overview of usability testing, performing a testing process health check, testing object-oriented software, and test process adoption. The book concludes with a glossary of terms.

Many of the standard testing books are long and complex. The authors of Testing IT have stepped away from this model and captured the essence of software testing in a clear and straightforward manner. I found the case studies presented in part two to be the most interesting and useful part of this book, as they provide an overview about the software testing approaches of other organizations. This is a book that I will definitely recommend to anybody who wishes to learn more about software testing.