AcceptanceTestEngineering_Announcement.pdf
Update: Alpha version of the guide (Aug 26, 2008) is released
We are shipping an Alpha release of draft content that we feel is ready for comment from the community. From the alpha, you will be able to see the shape of the guide as it is coming together, and you will be able to give us feedback on anything we included or missed.
Project Description
The Acceptance Test Engineering Guide will provide guidance for technology stakeholders (developers, development leads, testers, test leads, architects, etc.) and business stakeholders (managers, customers, end users, etc) on the discipline of acceptance testing.
Why acceptance testing?
patterns & practices has produced just a few guides related to testing (including performance testing, security testing of web apps, and testing of .NET application blocks). However, we hear a lot of requests from our customers for guidance on testing and test strategy in general, and also guidance on every type of testing you can think of. Based on this customer feedback, and a look at what guidance was available, we determined that acceptance testing was the next area to invest in.
What is acceptance testing?
Working definitions for a number of terms are available in our
Draft Glossary. The current definition that is framing our work and discussions is:
- Acceptance Testing: Planned evaluation of a system by customers/customer proxies to assess to what degree it satisfies their expectations.
We are open to suggestions on this and other terms. Please leave comments on the
Draft Glossary page.
What are we producing?
This guide is the first in the series of three dedicated to acceptance testing and requirements engineering:
- Acceptance test engineering guide
- Acceptance test automation guide
- Tool support for acceptance test-driven development.
The first guide will cover the discipline of acceptance testing from several perspectives and contexts. It will provide models, heuristics and a set of actionable job aides rooted in a sample app. The focus is on:
- How to Plan for Acceptance Testing
- What Kinds of Acceptance Tests to Run
- How to Create and Run Acceptance Tests
- Defining What “Done” Means
- How to Justify Your Approach
What types of things you can learn in the guide?
If any of the following goals apply to you, you will want to check out the the guide.
Who is on the team?
- Grigori Melnik (program manager at p&p)
- Jon Bach (professional test strategist from Quardev Labs)
- Gerard Meszaros (agile and test automation expert and author of xUnit Test Patterns - Refactoring Test Code)
- Michael Puleio (developer at p&p with a passion around testing)
- Rohit Sharma (tester at p&p).
- RoAnn Corbisier (technical writer and editor at p&p)
- You, the community. We want to hear from you via the Discussion forum here, the Issue Tracker, and feedback comments on what we post. We will listen, even if we do not agree with the recommendations or comments.
When will we be done?
We have a rough plan in place, which targets sending the guide to the publisher and releasing it to the web at the end of July. Between now and August, we will post what we are working on here on our community site about every other week.
We look forward to your participation!
Surveys:
Fill them out to provide input, insight, and feedback to the team.
