Improving the Test Process: Implementing Improvement and Change - A Study Guide for the ISTQB Expert Level Module (2014)

Preface

If your objective is to gain well-rounded, in-depth knowledge of how to improve testing processes, this book is for you. It is a “one-stop” study guide for the “Improving the Test Process” module of the ISTQB Certified Tester Expert Level.

This book will give you a thorough understanding of how to approach test process improvement from two fundamental viewpoints: the process itself and the people issues concerned with improving the process. It’s not a book about using model XYZ or applying technique ABC; it considers test process improvement itself as a process, with a wide range of options, choices, and interactions.

Of course, you’ll get in-depth information about models and techniques; we need to know the “tools of the trade” and how to use them. But there’s more to test process improvement than merely applying models and techniques.

This book will also help you improve your soft skills. In particular it will allow you to appreciate the way people interact, how they respond to change and how they can be guided through the changes that lead to process improvement. Don’t worry, you don’t need to be a psychologist to improve testing processes, but understanding people issues is a critical success factor.

This book is aimed at anyone charged with improving processes. The focus is on test processes, so test managers and test consultants in particular will benefit, but many of the issues covered apply equally well to improving other IT processes and will benefit many IT professionals.

The book provides full coverage of the “Improving the Test Process” module of the ISTQB Certified Tester Expert Level [ISTQB-CTEL-ITP]. Two of the three core authors of this syllabus are also the authors of this book; we cover everything you will need to know to successfully sit for the examinations.