Istqb Advanced Level Test Manager

I recently passed the exam to become a certified test manager so I am now an Istqb Advanced Level Test Manager. This is something I've been preparing for in my spare time for about two years. I also attended an excellent course at ITQ, led by the excellent Hans Schaefer (see [1])

Even if you are not very much interested in the whole process of getting a certificate I find it a good idea to get an independent review of your knowledge to see if you are on the right track. So I am pro certifications. If you don't like the idea of certifications then I think that you can still find some very important aspects of test management by reading Rex Blacks book or by checking out the syllabus.

The main areas of the syllabus and the basis for the course are:

1. Testing Process
2. Test Management
3. Reviews
4. Defect Management
5. Improving the Testing Process
6. Test Tools and Automation
7. People Skills - Team Composition

Detailed contents can be found in Boken Advanced Software Testing or at for example SSTB's webpage (see [2], click Documents).

Before passing this certification I passed two other certifications (without attending the corresponding courses): Istqb Foundation Certified Tester Foundation Level for testing and Reqb Certified Professional For Requirements Engineering for requirements.

I also read two books that are very relevant to this certification:

• Boken Advanced Software Testing that targets the syllabus and the certification (the book I have targets a slightly outdated syllabus, a new edition of the book is "coming soon" and will target the new version). From what I understand the main differences are: decreased emphasis on FMEA (see [3]) and updated contents on improving the test process).
• Boken The Economics Of Software Quality with verbose catalogs of test methods and how effective they are. I also remember two lists: one with activities that positively affect software quality and another with aspects that decrease it.

In addition I've also spend quite a few hours thinking about test management. Some of is shared in this wiki:

• Agil Testprocess, some ideas of test processes. (I don't know if they are any good, though).
• Metod För Formell Granskning, a recap the IEEE 1028 standard.
• Beräkna Testinsats, some thoughts on how to estimate the test effort.
• Riskbaserad Testning, ideas on risk-based testing.

I have also spent a number of hours at work with test management - some of it is described here in the pages on Session Based Exploratory Testing and James Bach Open Lecture On Software Testing. I will also try to investigate the writings of James Whittaker (his blog at MSDN: [4]) since I've heard that he is quite a guru when it comes to exploratory testing (without bashing the ISTQB approach to testing as the Bach's do).

Will I continue to harvest knowledge, certifications or am I done now? I don't know, but I just downloaded the syllabus and ordered a book for the Istqb Foundation Certified Agile Tester :-)

See also Istqb Foundation Certified Tester Foundation Level
This page belongs in Kategori Test