A Tester's Syllabus (pdf)
Recommended Books
These books are useful sources if you want to learn more about the underpinnings of the rapid approach to software testing. Each book on this list held some key insight that helped me make sense of how excellent testers do their work. -- James Bach
Lessons Learned in Software Testing: A Context-Driven Approach
This book is a radical departure from conventional wisdom found in software testing textbooks. Presented in a couple hundred bite-sized lessons, we offer our best ideas and advice for the working software tester. We puncture unhelpful myths about test documentation and automation, introduce a classification system for test techniques, and cover at least four subjects rarely discussed in testing textbooks: thinking like a tester, bug advocacy, interacting with programmers, and test design strategy.
This book also presents the principles of the Context-Driven school of methodology, a community of thinkers and writers who have, since 1997, been advocating a new direction of methodology thinking in the software industry. We focus more on people and their skills, and less what we see as peripheral issues, such as process documentation.
Amplifying Your Effectiveness
I am also the co-author and editor of Amplifying Your Effectiveness, a book of essays from successful software consultants about project management and personal empowerment.
Systems Thinking
Quality Software Management, Vol. 1: Systems Thinking
1991, Gerald M. Weinberg
An Introduction to General Systems Thinking
1975, Gerald M. Weinberg
Secrets of Consulting: A Guide to Giving and Getting Advice Successfully
1986, Gerald M. Weinberg
General Principles of Systems Design
1988, Gerald M. Weinberg, Daniela Weinberg
Heuristics
David A.Levy, 1997
Exploring Requirements: Quality Before Design
1989, Don Gause, Gerald M. Weinberg
1945, George Polya
1990, Daniel Solow
Ways People Think and Learn
1996, Edwin Hutchins
1994, Jonathan Baron
Lateral Thinking: Creativity Step by Step
1990, Ed De Bono
The Social Life of Information
2000, John Seely Brown, Paul Duguid
Things That Make Us Smart: Defending Human Attributes in the Age of the Machine
1993, Donald Norman
Scientific Thinking
The Sciences of the Artificial, 3rd Ed.
1996, Herbert A. Simon
Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge
1992, Karl Popper
Theory and Evidence: The Development of Scientific Reasoning
1996, Barbara Koslowski
Abductive Inference: Computation, Philosophy, Technology
1996, John R. Josephson, Susan G. Josephson
The Pleasure of Finding Things Out
1999, Richard Feynman
Science as a Questioning Process
1996, Nigel Sanitt
Administrative Behavior, 4th ed.
1997, Herbert Simon
Software Testing
1992, Cem Kaner, Hung Quoc Nguyen, Jack Falk
Software Testing: A Craftman's Approach
1995, Paul C. Jorgensen
Bad Software: What to Do When Software Fails
1999, Cem Kaner, David Pels
Example of an Implicit Specification
The Windows Interface Guidelines for Software Design
1995, Microsoft
Teamwork and Communication in a Technical Team
Quality Software Management, Vol. 3: Congruent Action
1994, Gerald M. Weinberg
