Product Description

It may surprise you to learn that Microsoft employs as many software testers as developers. Less surprising is the emphasis the company places on the testing discipline—and its role in managing quality across a diverse, 150+ product portfolio. This book—written by three of Microsoft’s most prominent test professionals—shares the best practices, tools, and systems used by the company’s 9,000-strong corps of testers. Learn how your colleagues at Microsoft design and manage testing, their approach to training and career development, and what challenges they see ahead. Most important, you’ll get practical insights you can apply for better results in your organization. Discover how to: • Design effective tests and run them throughout the product lifecycle • Minimize cost and risk with functional tests, and know when to apply structural techniques • Measure code complexity to identify bugs and potential maintenance issues • Use models to generate test cases, surface unexpected application behavior, and manage risk • Know when to employ automated tests, design them for long-term use, and plug into an automation infrastructure • Review the hallmarks of great testers—and the tools they use to run tests, probe systems, and track progress efficiently • Explore the challenges of testing services vs. shrink-wrapped software  

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #34422 in Books
• Published on: 2009-01-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 405 pages

About the Author
Authors Alan Page, Ken Johnston and Bj Rollison: Alan Page began his software testing career in 1993 and joined Microsoft in 1995. In Alan's career at Microsoft, he has worked on various versions of Windows, Internet Explorer, and Windows CE. While a member of the Windows CE team, Alan became one of Microsoft's first Test Architects in 2001. Alan joined the Engineering Excellence team in 2005 and is currently the Director of Test Excellence at Microsoft, where he and his team provide technical training and consulting for testers at Microsoft. Ken Johnston is the Group Manager for the Microsoft Office Internet Platform & Operations team. This team develops manageability features for server products and services as well as provides live site operations support for Office Online, Office Live, CRM Online and several other services. Since joining Microsoft in 1998 Johnston has filled many other roles, including test lead on Site Server and MCIS and test manager on Hosted Exchange, Knowledge Worker Services, Net Docs, and the Microsoft Billing and Subscription Platform service. For two and a half years (2004-2006) he served as the Microsoft Director of Test Excellence. Bj Rollison is a Test Architect in the Engineering Excellence team. He began his Microsoft career in 1994, working on Windows 95. He also worked on various releases of Internet Explorer, Outlook 98, and several smaller projects until becoming the Director of Test in 1999. Prior to Microsoft, Bj worked for a small OEM company in Japan building hardware and software solutions for small businesses. Bj is a frequent speaker at international conferences, contributes regularly to professional trade journals, and also teaches courses in software testing and test automation for the University of Washington Extension Program.

Customer Reviews

Excellent read
I must confess that when I first came across the book "How We Test Software At Microsoft" I had a little snigger
With Vista not exactly taking the world by storm, the usual raft of security patches being uploaded to my PC and then the Zune problem hitting the press and Microsoft were not exactly the Toyota of the software world

That was just a lazy opinion though - anyone with an interest in tech should be wondering how one of the giants does what it does - and as a tester I should be finding out how things are done there ( if only so I could do things differently )

I found it to be an excellent book, lots of tales from the trenches, explanations of the problems MS faces, how they try to overcome them - all intermingled with general testing theory

The first part of the book gives a lot of background of Microsoft - sometimes a bit too rah-rah but sets the base for the rest of the book

Part II gets onto test techniques and although I thought I'd read most testing theory books written I still came across a few new bits - and the theory is interspersed with tales of it being used in practice

Part III covers tools and systems and ranges from bug trackers to user feedback to testing Software Plus Services

Finally the book finishes with a look at the future and the test scructure in place to try and lead MS there

The best complement that I can pay the book is that I wrote a lot of Post-It notes whilst reading it and it has already led to a few blog posts and discussions on testing websites

An engaging and practical book with lessons for us all
It would be easy to be cynical about a book by Microsoft on testing software, but that would be a great mistake; this book describes convincingly how a large organisation improved the testing of its software, by changes to the organisational attitudes, responsibilities, and skills. It is also a valuable handbook of practical techniques and tools, described by people who actually use them in their real work. As testing continues to improve at Microsoft, cynicism becomes not simply inappropriate but also ostrich like - I can think of other organisations who need to learn the same lessons...

The book is divided into four main parts. The first sets the scene with the background of software engineering and software testing in Microsoft, describing the change in culture and attitude bringing the idea of a test engineer as opposed to a tester. This part is useful is you want to understand Microsoft's structure for testing, and perhaps to draw lessons for your own organisation's structure. The second part describes HOW TO test, looking at test case design techniques and the analysis of risk. Part 3 focuses on the management of the testing via tools and systems, but also includes a chapter on non-functional testing, which for me would sit more happily in section 2. The final part of the book discusses the future for testing at Microsoft.

My suggestion is that if you are doing testing or managing testing, start by reading part 2 and part 3 of the book. You will get some good insights into useful techniques and tools which you can apply to your own work, to help in designing, executing and controlling your testing, as well as in obtaining and using customer feedback. These chapters cover a wide range of techniques with good examples.

I found part 1 and part 4 less convincing on first read, but on returning to them after enjoying parts 2 and 3 realised that I was being somewhat British and reserved; the exuberance and enthusiasm that the authors display for their company and their work is genuine, heartfelt and deserved, as well as reflecting the culture of the company.

I recommend this book thoroughly; it will be a useful addition not just to your book shelf but to your work desk. It will help testers, test managers, developers and analysts to understand and apply improved test methods in their daily work.

Thoroughly Enjoyable & Worth Reading!
What really got my attention was the title! It is simple, but yet every tester would be curious to find out how they test at Microsoft! Yes, we can be sarcastic and ask `Do they Test at all at Microsoft? But the fact is that if you are a software tester, at some stage you have most likely used one of their products!

So now moving on to the book itself! After reading the first few pages I thought it was going to be more Microsoft centric and less about the testing (I was proven wrong later in the book)! Although, I must admit I enjoyed every bit of the first part. The book has been divided in four parts, Part I is `About Microsoft', Part II is `About Testing', Part III is `Test Tools & Systems' and Part IV is `About the Future'.
These parts consist of chapters, ranging from Software Engineering at Microsoft in Part I to Analysing Risk with Code Complexity in Part II to Testing Software Plus Services in Part III and concluding with Solving Tomorrow's Problems Today in Part IV.

In Part I, of course I enjoyed reading about the details of software engineering at Microsoft, but I particularly enjoyed the tester DNA term! I think it could be used very usefully to demonstrate testing needs specialised skills! Also, the career path diagrams are particularly useful to understand what career paths potentially exist in software testing.

Part II, focuses more on software testing techniques. I will not discuss this in too much detail as the material contained is what you would expect. But what makes these chapters easier to read than testing techniques for a certification is the fact that the techniques are illustrated with practical examples, the authors explain techniques which we as testers are assumed to know completely. So this part is particularly useful for testers who are involved with test case designing.

Part III of the book focuses on Test Tools and Systems. It starts with an excellent chapter on `Managing Bugs & Test Cases'. And I say excellent, because I just couldn't put the book down when I was reading this chapter. The concept of the Bug bar is very interesting, though I am not sure how that would be applicable to a scenario where the developer is only assigned for bug fixing. It also discusses the concept of bug triage. The remaining chapters discuss automation, non-functional testing and information about tools, customer feedback, and testing software plus services.

Part IV is all about the future. It briefly describes the challenges that Microsoft faces, and I suppose by the time you are reading this chapter you are most likely thinking about challenges that your team or you as a software test professional would be facing. How much can the challenges being faced by Microsoft generalised. But the best thing about the last part is this quote by Machiavelli and its parallels in software testing, with which I will conclude this review!
Machiavelli wrote, "In the beginning of the malady it is easy to cure but difficult to detect, but in the course of time not having been either detected or treated in the beginning, it becomes easy to detect but difficult to cure"