Release of my ebook: "What If..."

Today is a special day. It is my mother's birthday.
To celebrate the birthday, I released an ebook :)
  

About the book:

This ebook is a small collection of my experiences in software testing. In 2006, I started my career as an Associate QA Engineer. Straight after my college, I dived into this job with a lot of energy. The entire corporate world was new to me. I was not aware of the term ‘Software Testing’. After three weeks of training sessions, my first task was to execute the test cases. As you read these words, I have completed five official years of testing software. When I logged my first bug, I thought – ‘What if’ this bug was found after release? Years passed, many products were released, and I gained a lot of varied experiences.  

I made a few embarrassing mistakes too. There were few instances where I wished that someone had warned me beforehand. So, I started preparing a book of tips targeted at software testers. Special care has been taken to keep each of the 22 chapters short and to the point. Emphasis is on ready-to-use tips which would give you instant results. I do believe that there is no single best practice which would suit every context. Being a student of context driven testing community, I agree that there are good practices in context, but there are no best practices. This book is heavily influenced by my experiences with industry experts, reading books, testing software, talking to customers, end-users, support team, testers, programmers and their managers. Do let me know if you have a topic in mind which I have not covered. 

How to buy the book:

1. Browse to http://www.jumadi.in/book/ajay-balamurugadas-9080000000000.html

2. Buy the book. You may need to create an account [Less than a minute!]

3. Take a screenshot from the payment history page and email to ajay184f@gmail.com. I will immediately email you the book.

NOTE: Anyone with a valid credit card can buy this book even if you live outside India.

Jumadi.in accepts credit cards, debit cards, net banking.

How can I buy your books?
1. Please transfer INR 125 to the following bank account.

Account Details:

AJAY BALAMURUGADAS

Account No: 00531610015960

Bank: HDFC Bank 

IFSC Code: HDFC0000053

If you are using Paypal, please transfer USD 2.5 to ajay184f@gmail.com

2. Once I receive the money, I will email you the book.
Any questions, feel free to email me at ajay184f@gmail.com

Do I get any discount?
Buy both books at INR 285 or USD 6.0

Second book: http://enjoytesting.blogspot.com/2011/11/release-of-my-ebook-what-if-50-tips-to.html

What this book is NOT:

This book is not THE book on software testing. If you want to know in detail about any topic, this is not the right book. In fact, I have recommended other books in my book. 

What do other testers say about this book?

Bernice

I recommend Ajay’s e-book “What If’” for anyone who is new to software testing as it provides many valuable tips in how to approach testing situations from a tester’s real-life experience.  This e-book is also valuable to more experience testers who may learn about new tools and techniques such as mind-maps and alternative ways of sharpening testing skills such as competitions and weekend testing.  This e-book is not only packed with tips but also many useful links for further learning opportunities such as books, training                                                         courses, articles, and much more!

Bernice Niel Ruhland

Software Testing Manager for a privately owned software development company

Alek

Ajay writes I wished that someone had warned me beforehand. I can't agree more I wish someone gave me the book of tips about software testing on the beginning of my career or at least taught me to use "what if" question more often. If you aim at skills improvement in software testing and you want to find out the ways you can do this, I strongly recommend this book.

Aleksander Lipski

http://aleetesting.blogspot.com/

Huib

With this ebook Ajay helps the testing community with some great checklists in a FAQ-style. "What if" helps junior testers to get up to speed in testing more easy but it is also quite useful for experienced testers. In this short and to-the-point ebook, he covers some important topics for software testers who want to learn! A quick win is in there for everyone!

Huib Schoots

http://www.huibschoots.nl/wordpress/

Elena

I wish I had this quick reference book when I first started testing. It would have saved me from a lot of growing pains. It is an easy read and a tremendous resource of useful information and tips that any testing professional can benefit from.

Elena Houser

http://trancecyberiantester.blogspot.com/

At this moment, I need to thank a few people.
My special thanks to 

My parents, my sisters and my grandparents.
They make sure there is no disturbance to me. They take care of my needs, stay awake even when I return home late and save money for me to spend on improving my skills.

My friends.
I have learnt so much from each of the interactions with testers online. Thanks to each of my friends who have constantly exchanged ideas and helped me learn new things. Thanks to Eveline for patiently listening to me every time I talk. Special thanks to three friends - Narendra, Vinay and Praveen for being the '3 Idiots' in my life.

My office colleagues.
They have always helped me whenever I wanted to test a different software. It is a cool experience to test different software and thanks to my colleagues and managers who have always helped me.

My friends who reviewed my book.
From the moment I started writing the first chapter till the last moment, Shruti always encouraged me, constantly reviewed the book and provided the comments. She is a good friend of mine who does not hesitate to critique and help me.

Thanks to Miagi-Do school members who have spent their valuable time to review my book. Special thanks to Alek, Huib, Elena and Jeroen.

My sincere thanks to Satish from Jumadi.in for listing my book and helping me launch in time for my mother's birthday.

Hope you like the book :)

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Relationships Matter - Tester and Programmer

This post is close to my heart. I dedicate this post to all the programmers I have interacted with. My official testing career is just over four years old. In these four years, I'm very lucky to work on multiple products and interact with many programmers. Initially, I was worried that I never worked on any product for a full release cycle. After few months I realized that this continuous swapping between products meant increased interaction with different sets of programmers.

First product:
The programmer was my friend. Both of us joined the company on the same date. I always got the news about the changes in the build, which feature would be implemented, confidence level of the programming team and many more *secrets* before they were officially announced later. He used to tell me the bugs in others' code and I used to help him by testing his fix before it went into the build. Both were happy with this *adjustment* until the project was scrapped.

Second product:
I was the only tester in this project and there were four programmers. By this time, I knew that programmers are a good source of information. I also realized that they are ready to talk about their work. They too feel proud on doing a good job. My interactions with this team was more informal. We had more Coffee day meetings than formal meetings. I gave them my test suite and highlighted the different scenarios. They taught me ways to analyze log files and answered all my questions about the product.

I worked on many more products and I'm very happy to say that my programmers like to work with me. I'll share some of the tips which might help improve your relationship with programmers:
* Remember that they are human beings first and then programmers. Give respect and take respect.
* Programmers do not code to introduce bugs. If you think programming is easy, exchange your job responsibility for few hours.
* As Michael Bolton and James Bach highlight, our job is not to prove them wrong or make fun of them. Help them understand that you are helping them and not finding faults.
* Give them the information which would help them solve issues easily and quickly. Improve your bug investigation skills.
* Appreciate in public when they fix a very difficult bug, on their good work. People like to be encouraged and appreciated.
* Be patient, listen more, complain less, help more, fight less, talk more, argue less, discuss more, work together towards one mission.

And don't forget: 'Relationships matter' :)

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