Testing Experience Issue 1, March 2008
The first issue of Testing Experience appeared in March 2008 as a free quarterly magazine for professional testers. Its subject was test management, and its known contributors included Rex Black and Hans Schaefer.
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Open the issue indexThe launch issue
The launch. Testing Experience began in March 2008 as a free, English-language quarterly for professional testers, published in Berlin by a testing consultancy and training company and edited by Jose Diaz. Readers registered once and received each issue at no cost. Issue 1 set the rhythm the magazine kept until December 2014: four issues a year, written largely by practitioners for practitioners, giving testers a place to read about their own discipline instead of borrowing from development or project management titles.
What it covered. The launch issue was built around test management. Three contributions are known: an article by Rex Black, one by an author named McQuaid, and one by Hans Schaefer, whose article also appeared in a Russian translation. Beyond those three, the contents of the issue are not covered here, and no other articles or authors are attributed to it. The known names are enough to place the issue. Rex Black and Hans Schaefer were established voices on test process, risk and the practical running of a test effort, and opening a new magazine with them signalled that it meant to speak to test leads and managers as well as to hands-on testers. The Russian version of the Schaefer article is a small sign that the readership was international from the start.
The vocabulary of test management has moved since 2008, but the job of deciding what to test, in what order, and how to show it was done has not.
Test management then and now
Test management in 2008. A test manager reading in spring 2008 worked mostly inside phased projects. The test plan was a formal document written early, reviewed by stakeholders and kept under change control. The test process was the ISTQB fundamental test process: planning and control, analysis and design, implementation and execution, evaluating exit criteria and reporting, and closure. Iterative delivery was spreading, and many readers were already asking how a plan written at the start of a project could survive two-week iterations. The questions a reader brought to the launch issue were practical ones: how to plan a test effort, which documents to produce, how to decide what to test first, and how to report progress honestly.
How the practice has changed. The test management practice the launch issue's authors are associated with has been re-standardised since 2008. IEEE 829-2008 was published that year and was the document standard a 2008 test manager cited; it has since been superseded by ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119, whose parts on test processes (29119-2) and test documentation (29119-3) were first issued in 2013 and revised in 2021. The ISTQB Foundation syllabus a 2008 reader would have studied was the 2007 edition; the current syllabus is version 4.0, released in 2023, and it organises the test activities as planning, monitoring and control, analysis, design, implementation, execution and completion, the same activities the test process guide uses. The vocabulary moved. The underlying job of deciding what to test, in what order, and how to show it was done has stayed where the launch issue's authors left it.
Where to read about it now
Where to read about it now. The software test process guide answers the first of those 2008 questions with its six-activity table (inputs, main activities, deliverables and exit criteria for each activity, from planning to completion), and its section on the process in a two-week sprint takes up the phased-to-iterative question readers were already facing. The test plan guide gives a ten-section fill-in template keyed to IEEE 829 section numbers and mapped to ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119-3, followed by seven steps from fixing the scope to reviewing twice and baselining; Figure 1 in that guide budgets about 12 hours for a first full draft of a release-level plan. The test strategy guide fits the whole approach on one page under seven headings, the document a test manager now writes before any plan.
Reading the issue today. The original issue is not distributed on this site. If you hold a copy and want to cite it, give the magazine title, the issue number and the date: Testing Experience, issue 1, March 2008. The magazine hub describes the magazine as a whole, its editor, its sister title and its recurring themes, and the issue index lists all 28 issues in order, with a page for each issue whose theme is known.
Then and now
Guides that continue this subject
- Test ManagementSoftware test process: six activities, inputs and deliverables
- Test ManagementHow to write a test plan that survives review
- Test ManagementTest strategy: the one-page version that actually gets used
Questions
Is the March 2008 issue of Testing Experience available here?
No. This site does not distribute the original issues. This page describes what the launch issue covered and points to current guides on the same subjects.
What did issue 1 cover?
Test management. Known contributions include an article by Rex Black, one by an author named McQuaid, and one by Hans Schaefer that also appeared in Russian. The rest of the contents are not covered here.
Who edited Testing Experience?
Jose Diaz was the editor. The magazine was published in Berlin by a testing consultancy and training company.
How often did Testing Experience appear?
Quarterly. It ran to 28 issues between March 2008 and December 2014 and was free after registration.
Where do I read about test management now?
Start with the software test process guide and the test plan guide in the Test Management hub, then the one-page test strategy guide. All three are written for current practice rather than for 2008.
