Volume I provides an overview of the acceptance process and how acceptance testing and other key practices fit into the process. It is subdivided into three main parts:

• Part I – Thinking about Acceptance explains six mental models that are useful when thinking about the acceptance process.

• Part II – Perspectives on Acceptance describes the acceptance process from the perspectives of key stakeholders in two different kinds of organizations: the Information Technology Department in a business and the Product Development Company. Most readers involved in the acceptance process should find some commonality with at least one of the roles describes.

• Part III – Accepting Software introduces the practices that are necessary for planning the acceptance process, for performing acceptance testing and for improving the acceptance process.

Note: This volume is intended to be read from beginning to end. It

Your thoughtful feedback is invited. Feel free to comment inline. The PDF file allows edits and comments (only a free Adobe Acrobat Reader version 7 or later is required). You can send the file with embedded comments back to melnik at live dot com.

Alternatively, post your questions, suggestions, screams in the Issue Tracker.

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The Team

• Main authors:
  • Grigori Melnik (program manager at Microsoft patterns & practices)
  • Gerard Meszaros (agile coach, test automation expert and author of xUnit Test Patterns - Refactoring Test Code)
  • Jon Bach (professional test strategist from Lexis Nexis)

• Contributors and production:
  • Michael Puleio (developer at p&p with a passion around testing)
  • Rohit Sharma (tester at p&p)
  • RoAnn Corbisier (technical writer and editor at p&p)
  • Hakan Erdogmus (applied researcher at Kalemun Research Inc.)
  • Dennis DeWitt (technical writer with Linda Werner & Associates Inc.)
  • Veronica Ruiz (graphic designer, CXR Design))
  • Members of the Advisory Board and invited reviewers
  • You, the community. We want to hear from you via the Discussion forum here, the Issue Tracker, and feedback comments on what we post.