This is the Safari online edition of the printed book.

Testing accounts for an increasingly large percentage of the time and cost of new software development: up to 60% in some environments. Using Automated Software Testing (AST), developers can reduce these costs, and optimize testing processes for the latest tools, languages, and architectures. As development grows increasingly complex, AST becomes even more indispensable. Now, for the first time, there’s a practical, start-to-finish guide to implementing it successfully.

In Implementing Automated Software Testing, three leading experts explain AST in detail, systematically reviewing its components, capabilities, and limitations and present proven best practices for using it. Then, drawing on their unsurpassed experience deploying AST in both defense and the private sector, they walk through the entire implementation process—identifying best practices, crucial success factors, key pitfalls, and solutions for avoiding them.

You will learn to:

• Use Automated Software testing to improve quality, reduce cost, and accelerate delivery

• Make a realistic business case for Automated Software Testing, and use it to drive your initiative

• Clarify your testing requirements and develop an automation strategy that reflects them

• Decide what to automate—and what not to

• Build efficient test environments

• Apply configuration management to automated test scripts and related artifacts

• Document and peer-review your test cases

• Choose the right automation tools and techniques for your environment

• Build the skill sets your team needs to succeed

• Implement AST best practices proven in enterprise and defense environments

• Use proven metrics to continuously track your progress and adjust accordingly

• Integrate automated testing into mission-critical and real-time development environments

• Test system security and performance

• Use automated testing with open source systems

• Avoid common mistakes that cause AST initiatives to fail

Whether you’re a test professional, QA specialist, project manager, or developer, this book can help you bring unprecedented efficiency to testing—and then use testing to improve your entire development lifecycle.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 10 Ratings

Avoiding Automation Pitfalls - 2009-06-12
Reviewer Rating:
Highly recommended!
This book covers automated software testing pitfalls. If your past automated software testing efforts resulted in failure, some of the pitfalls described in this book might sound familiar.
If you are starting up an automated testing effort, read the pitfalls, avoid these lessons learned.
Hiring automated testing engineers? Skills required for automated testing efforts are described in detail.
Do you need to build an automated testing framework for a larger testing program? This book has it covered.
Do you need to evaluate testing tools but don't know what criteria to look for? This book provides an entire appendix of tool evaluation examples.
Do you need to convince your management why automated software testing is the way to go, this book covers the business case for it.
This book will help you through all your automated testing challenges.

IAST Is Hot! - 2009-06-28
Reviewer Rating:
Wanna know what's hot in test automation? Just do a Google search on the term "Implementing Automated Software Testing" (IAST), and you'll find out quickly. With approximately 3 million search results, this is clearly a very popular term, but not only that, it is now the title of a new book written by Elfriede Dustin, Thom Garrett and Bernie Gauf. We at the Automated Testing Institute aren't sure if the title is coincidently identical to one of the most popular test automation terms, or if it was a genius marketing ploy to get more attention drawn to the book; whatever the reason, it is definitely aptly named. This successor to Automated Software Testing (AST) - a 1999 book also coauthored by Dustin, and also a term with approximately 30 million Google search results (wink, wink) - wastes no time in picking up where its predecessor leaves off. AST largely focuses on how test automation may fit into the overall software development and testing lifecycles, IAST lends more of its attention to the test automation effort itself and the details of managing an automated software testing effort.

IAST does an excellent job covering the following Automation Body of Knowledge version 1 (ABOK v1) skill categories (visit [....] for more information on the ABOK):
* Skill Category 1: Automation's Role in the Software Testing Lifecycle (STLC)
* Skill Category 2: Test Automation Types and Interfaces
* Skill Category 3: Automation Tools
* Skill Category 4: Test Automation Framework Design
* Skill Category 5: Automation Framework Design
* Skill Category 12: Automated Test Reporting

This review will therefore describe the book and discuss how these categories are addressed. IAST is divided into three major segments:
* Part I: What Is Automated Software Testing and Why Should We Automate? (Chapters 1 - 4)
* Part II: How to Automate: Top Six Keys for Automation Payoff (Chapters 5 - 10)
* Appendices (Appendix A - D)

Part I does an excellent job addressing Skill Category 1 of the ABOK in that it addresses the `what' and `why' of test automation. Chapter 1 sets the tone of the book with a "unified" definition of test automation; a definition that also works to distinguish test automation from manual software testing. This chapter, along with its reference to Appendix B, also addresses ABOK Skill Category 2 with a discussion of the "typical testing types that lend themselves to automation". Chapters 2 through 4, round out Part 1 of IAST, and continue to further address ABOK Skill Category 1 with topics including: reasons for automating, making the business case for test automation with return on investment (ROI) calculations, and how to avoid typical test automation pitfalls. The latter half of Chapter 4 also addresses ABOK Skill Category 3, by discussing tool evaluation and selection. This discussion is aided by Appendix C which expands into tools and tool requirements not only for automating tests, but also for automation of processes such as requirements management, defect tracking and security testing.

Part II of IAST graduates from the `what' and `why' of test automation and delves into the `how' of test automation. Not `how' in terms of how to develop scripts, but `how' in terms of how to create, implement and monitor an automated test framework; and these are items found in Skill Categories 4, 5 and 12 of the ABOK. Part II of IAST begins with Chapter 5, which discusses how to define requirements for your test automation effort. Chapters 6 and 7 build on this by discussing how to take these requirements and develop a compatible strategy and framework. Chapters 8 and 9 cover the next logical steps of defining metrics to track test automation progress, and the implementation of the automated software test framework processes. Then finally, Chapter 10 closes the main portion of the book with a broad discussion of the skills required for test automation implementation.

In summary, IAST is strong with respect to test automation from a macroscopic level. This makes it a great resource for managers, leads, and anyone that is responsible for or will take part in defining and implementing a test automation effort. [Review originally posted in the August 09 Issue of the Automated Software Testing Magazine - [...]]

A 'must' for professionals involved in QA or project management - 2009-06-17
Reviewer Rating:
Testing accounts for a large percentage of the time and cost of any new software development, and using AST - automated software testing - developers and testers can make the most of testing lifecycles, reducing costs. This comes from three leading experts in AST who explain the process, review its pros and cons, and use their experience in the defense and commercial world to help users make realistic business decisions. A 'must' for professionals involved in QA or project management as well as for software engineers, this is a pick for computer and business collections alike.

A Wealth of Information for Big-Project Test Teams - 2009-10-10
Reviewer Rating:
Implementing Automated Software Testing is a systematic examination of the why and how of large scale automation of big, complex systems.

While the back cover says "Whether you're a test professional, QA spec ialist, project manager, or developer, this book can help you bring unprecendented efficiency to testing - and then use AST to improve your entire developement lifecycle", I'm not sure this book is for everyone.

New QAers or testers, those involved with testing smaller-scale systems, or those involved in projects with smaller budgets and shorter timelines might find the book's recommendations overwhelming. It seems clear to me that this book is best for those who are charged with determining a test automation approach for very large scale, long-term systems, with large budgets, such as those used by the Department of Defense and larger commercial efforts.

From the Preface:

"We at IDT have identified a boilerplate solution, strategies, and idea, all provided in this book, that can help increase the chances of your automated testing success."

I agree. All of the authors and all of the contributing authors are IDT employees. This is IDT's boilerplate solution. As with all boilerplate solutions, it may not fit your specific situation.

If it does, you will find a wealth of information. And even if it doesn't you can still find useful nuggets of information about how some of these "big-project" teams automate their tests. For example, I particularly liked Chapter 4 - Why Automated Software Testing Fails and Pitfalls to Avoid. I believe this chapter would be useful for anyone about to embark on a test automation project.

Great reference tool. You benefit from other's experience. - 2009-07-22
Reviewer Rating:
(Full disclosure: I got this book for review at no cost for me)

"Implementing Automated Software Testing" walks the reader through the each of the phases necessary for going from a manual testing environment to an automated one. The book is written mostly in general terms, making it useful for most environments, regardless of the type of applications being tested.

The book reads like a compilation of tips accumulated over the course of years of experience by the authors. It can almost be described as vaccination: If you don't read the book you might not make all the mistakes it tries to prevent, but if you do read it, you'll instinctively know how to make good decisions and what to do next.

Content is organized in a very logical manner. It starts defining why AST is beneficial and how to introduce it to the current environment, including presenting the business case. From there it goes to the main subject, implementation, followed by results measurement, and personnel roles in the project.

Overall, the book is very well written. Points are made quickly and in simple terms. The page layout and fonts make the book easy to read.

The book is a very valuable tool for managers and team leads of software QA. If read before starting an AST project, it will save the reader from many of the common mistakes made by many.

Browse Similar Topics

Top Level Categories:
Software Engineering

Sub-Categories:
Software Engineering > Testing and Debugging