Acceptance Test Engineering Guide Beta 2 Live on CodePlex

How do you decide that a software product is indeed ready for the customers? Well, the Acceptance Test Engineering Guide is a good place to start. As of June 30, the Beta version of the Volume I of the Acceptance Test Engineering Guide (Jun 30, 2009) is live on CodePlex and now available for download. Microsoft indicated that the shipping of the Beta 2 release pointed to the fact that the company considered the draft content was ready for review. With this the Redmond giant is essentially inviting community feedback. According to Microsoft, the guide is addressed at those intimately involved in the process of software development, developers, testers, architects, as well as at those responsible for selling the products and ultimately to customers and end users, being capable of delivering an insight into acceptance testing.

“Our patterns & practices Acceptance Test Engineering Guide, Volume 1 (Beta 2) is now available on CodePlex. The working definition that the team is using for acceptance testing is the planned evaluation of a system by customers and customer proxies to assess to what degree it satisfies their expectations,” revealed J.D. Meier, the PM for security and performance on the patterns & practices team.

The software giant explained that the focus on acceptance testing was catalyzed by feedback from customers. Meier enumerated a few common scenarios that Microsoft addressed with the Acceptance Test Engineering Guide: “How to Plan for Acceptance Testing; What Kinds of Acceptance Tests to Run; How to Create and Run Acceptance Tests; Defining What “Done” Means; How to Justify Your Approach; and How to Streamline Your Acceptance Process.”

Microsoft is looking to expand resources designed for acceptance testing. In this context, the company explained that the Acceptance Test Engineering Guide would be followed by an Acceptance Test Automation Guide as well as by a Tool set up to deliver support for acceptance test-driven development.