Effective testing requires good planning, well defined procedures and good management. Until very recently, most tertiary courses in computer science contained very little material on the subject of testing. Also until very recently, many software developers have tended to ignore the need for thorough testing of their systems, preferring instead to deal with errors only when they have been discovered in production.

With the current focus on improving software quality, test planning and execution has now assumed a more important role, with many organizations in the process of formalizing their testing procedures. This booklet is designed to help with that process.

It is primarily a "what to do" guide. Although some sections also contain limited "how to" information, its main purpose is to help you to identify what you need to do to make your testing more efficient and more effective.

All the material at the front of the booklet applies to testing generally and is not directly related to TALC2000. The last section, which does relate to TALC2000, again explains what to do, not how to do it. The "how to" information is contained in the TALC2000 Operations and Training Guide, in the TALC2000 help text and in the "Write" files included in the "TALC2000 for Windows" program group.

In most cases we have not attempted to explain why things need to be done a certain way, nor have we provided possible alternative approaches. To have done so would have resulted in something closer to a ten hour guide that would have been much harder to follow.

Use this booklet as a checklist to get you started. It will help you to build the foundations for an effective and efficient testing environment.