Testing Experience Issue 4, December 2008
Issue 4 of Testing Experience appeared in December 2008 and closed the magazine's first year of quarterly publishing. This page describes that year and where the subjects testers cared about then are covered now.
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The issue. Testing Experience was a free, English-language quarterly for professional testers, published in Berlin by a testing consultancy and training company and edited by Jose Diaz. Issue 4 appeared in December 2008. With it the magazine completed its first full year: four issues, March, June, September and December, the rhythm it would keep until its final issue in December 2014. Readers registered once and received each issue free.
What it covered. The contents of this issue are not covered here. No account of its articles is available that this site can stand behind, so no theme, article or author is attributed to it. What can be said is what the end of 2008 meant for the title. A new magazine that reaches its fourth issue has shown it can find writers and readers every quarter, and the following year it moved to clearly themed issues, beginning with a crowdsourced testing interview in March 2009 and the security testing issue in June 2009.
The tester's role did not disappear when teams moved to agile delivery; it spread across the whole team.
Testing at the end of 2008 and since
Testing at the end of 2008. The two things a test manager reading in early 2009 most often needed were a way to decide what to test hardest and a way to fit testing into a team adopting iterative delivery. Risk-based testing was one approach among several, usually argued for in conference talks rather than assumed. Agile teams were becoming common, and many testers were unsure whether their role would survive the move from a separate test phase to a cross-functional team. The test process they worked inside was the ISTQB fundamental test process and, for documents, IEEE 829-2008. Estimation was the other perennial question: a test manager was expected to give a number of days for testing before the requirements were stable, and to defend it when the build arrived late. Many teams still measured progress in test cases executed, a figure that said little about the risk left in the product.
How the practice has changed. ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119-2, first published in 2013 and revised in 2021, restated the test process in three layers: an organisational test process (policy and strategy), test management processes (planning, monitoring and control, completion) and dynamic test processes (design, environment set-up, execution, incident reporting). The layering matters for a reader of this period because it separates the decisions a 2008 test manager made once per project from the ones made every day, and the test process guide follows that separation in its section on a regulated project. Risk-based selection, one approach among several in 2008, is the default the standard now assumes. The question of the tester's place in an agile team has also settled: the role did not disappear, it spread across the team.
Where to read about it now
Where to read about it now. The first of those needs is met by the risk-based testing guide: Figure 1 there is a 5 by 5 likelihood-times-impact matrix with red cells at 15 and above, and its table maps each risk class to depth of testing, techniques and share of effort, with a worked example of six features in one release. The second is the tester role in agile teams guide, whose first table shows how each responsibility moves from a phased project to a cross-functional team. For the question every test manager is asked next, how long testing will take, the test estimation guide in the same hub continues the subject. The Test Management hub and the Agile Testing hub collect the rest.
Placing the issue. 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 4, December 2008. The issue index shows where issue 4 sits in the run of 28, and the issue pages for March and September 2008 cover the rest of the first year.
Then and now
Guides that continue this subject
- Test ManagementRisk based testing: scoring, effort allocation, worked example
- Agile TestingRole of tester in agile teams: what changes and what does not
- Test ManagementTest estimation: five techniques with worked numbers
Questions
Is issue 4 of Testing Experience available here?
No. This site does not distribute the original issues. This page describes the period and points to current guides on the subjects testers cared about then.
What did the December 2008 issue cover?
The contents of this issue are not covered here, and no theme is claimed for it. It closed the magazine's first year, before the themed issues of 2009.
Who edited Testing Experience?
Jose Diaz was the editor. The magazine was published quarterly in Berlin by a testing consultancy and training company and was free after registration.
How do I cite issue 4?
Give the magazine title, issue number and date: Testing Experience, issue 4, December 2008. If you hold an Internet Archive capture of the issue, cite that too.
Where do I read about risk-based testing and the tester's role in agile teams now?
The risk-based testing guide and the test estimation guide in the Test Management hub, and the tester role in agile teams guide in the Agile Testing hub.
