CSTE Certification Preparatory Course

Learn software quality concepts, contrasting quality assurance as preventive with quality control as detective, and examine the cost of quality alongside McAllister’s factors like maintainability, reliability, usability, and portability.

Explore definitions of quality and excellence from producer and customer perspectives, close gaps through testing, and involve internal and external customers to achieve customer satisfaction.

Explore lifecycle testing as a process, not a project stage, that evaluates software to find errors and prevent defects, addressing process defects, design defects, and incomplete data issues.

Reduce defect frequency by adopting a structured, levels-based software process model from level 1 unstructured to level 5 innovative, emphasizing disciplined culture, quantitative standards, and benchmarking.

Explore how a test matrix maps functional events to verifiable conditions to validate processes, from initiating forms and approvals to data entry validation, payroll updates, and cascading events.

Explore independent testing and its role in measuring quality, debunk myths about testing simplicity, and apply analysis, design, and automated strategies to ensure timely, effective testing of deployed technology.

Explore the tester's workbench and a process view that defines objectives, inputs, procedures, tools, people, and measures; learn debugging and unit to integration testing across phases using benchmarks.

Explore the levels of testing from verification and unit testing to integration and system testing, and distinguish verification from validation, static vs dynamic, and black-box vs white-box approaches.

Explore structure and functional testing techniques, including stress testing, execution design, operations, compliance, security, and regression testing to verify performance and correct behavior.

Examine how the test environment relies on strong management support, resource allocation, and an aligned test strategy, underpinned by integrity, ethics, and clear authority within the organizational structure.

Understand the test work process, including policies, standards, and procedures, and the role of the process engineering committee. Align testing with development methodologies using IEEE standards to improve quality.

Identify and evaluate testing tools for automated and regression testing, and outline acquisition plans, selection criteria, and procurement processes.

Analyze tester competency through skill-set and performance-based criteria, noting planning and testing tools, and use the competency roadmap graph showing skill-set versus performance to explain growing proficiency.

Master test administration by planning risk-aware test projects, budgeting with smart goals, scheduling deliverables, staffing options, and customizing processes to ensure effective testing and accountability.

View change as a contract between investors and stakeholders, continually updating the change management plan and software configuration artifacts through requirements analysis and design to deliver updated versions.

Analyze risks in software testing, including risk analysis, probability of negative events, impact magnitude, and factors like training, tools, management support, user involvement, schedule impact, and premature release risk.

Understand risk analysis as a four-step process to prioritize testing resources for high-risk components, using risk scenarios or checklists to identify and quantify risk, and weigh compliance and ethics factors.

Examine risk appetite management, defined as the amount of loss management is willing to endure in a transaction, and contingency planning to minimize loss frequency and impact.

Identify the prerequisites to test planning by defining the test object, acceptance criteria, and assumptions. Document constraints and decision authorities to guide the plan and ensure effective risk planning.

Define a concrete goal based on risk and criticality, and explore coverage types like statement coverage, modified decision coverage, integration and data coverage, with automation tools to measure testing.

Learn to plan, execute, and document tests across units, integrations, and systems, using tools to manage test data, environments, and milestones while validating performance and security against defined quality goals.

Learn how to record test results and analyze deviations between expected and actual app behavior. Define the problem, map workflows, and identify root causes to guide fixes.

Apply a five-step defect management process—prevention, discovery, resolution, deliverable baseline, and process improvement—name and classify defects early, and document them to minimize risk and cost.

Collect and analyze data to establish prerequisites for test reporting. Define effective metrics and a reporting process covering test results, verification results, and defects across eight metric categories.

Explore desk tools to enhance test reporting through benchmarking and quality function deployment, improving district voting software quality and end-user satisfaction by using performance, process, and product benchmarking.

Identify acceptance testing concepts by involving users early and defining acceptance criteria to guide development and ensure the software fits users' business processes.

Identify and assign the roles and responsibilities of users and testers in acceptance testing, define testable acceptance criteria and use cases, and determine readiness for production.

Evaluate a seven-step COTS software test process by defining requirements and critical success factors, assessing outputs, compatibility, and demonstration, then evaluate users and perform acceptance testing.

Explore how contracted software testing integrates contract provisions, acceptance testing, and maintenance to ensure deliverables meet requirements and protect intellectual property.

Understand internal controls as a management responsibility that ensures operations, financial reporting, and compliance, with risk concepts and preventive, detective, and corrective controls in information systems.

Explore internal control models within an enterprise risk management framework, detailing components such as risk assessment, control activities, information and communication, monitoring, and the control environment.

Test internal controls in software systems by conducting risk assessments, validating defined controls from management, and evaluating transaction processing, data integrity, security, and data retention.

Identify penetration points and apply validation point metrics to strengthen transaction security and build a security awareness program.