It has never been easier to fool your manager into thinking that you're doing a great job testing! James Bach covers all of today's most respected test fakery. These techniques include: misleading test case metrics, vapid but impressive looking test documentation, repeatedly running old tests "just in case they find something," carefully maintaining obsolete tests, methodology doublespeak, endless tinkering with expensive test automation tools, and taking credit for a great product that would have been great even if no one had tested it. James covers best practices for blame deflection. By the time you're through, your executive management will not know whether to fire the programmers or the customers. But, you know it will not be you. (Disclaimer: It could be you if an outsourcing company fakes it more cheaply than you do.)

• Cautionary true stories of test fakery, both purposeful and accidental

We normally think about process improvement as something applied to projects. But process improvement is also for people-and even for managers. Join Johanna Rothman as she shares lessons she's learned and management improvements she's made during her years in management. Like many other technical managers, Johanna became a manager by rising through the technical ranks. And, like many other managers, she had plenty of technical training and mentoring but had to learn management skills the hard way-through trial and error. Johanna describes fifteen lessons she has learned as a manager and offers tips and techniques to help you avoid difficult situations. Learn how to motivate your team and raise their level of work-and how to manage yourself.

• What is the software manager's real job
• How to create an effective work environment
• How to help people do their best work

Software and technology managers often quote industry benchmarks such as The Standish Group's CHAOS report on software project failures; other organizations use this data to judge their internal operations. Although these external benchmarks can provide insights into your company's software development performance, you need to balance the picture with internal information to make an objective evaluation. Jim Brosseau takes a deeper look at common benchmarks, including the CHAOS report, published SEI benchmark data, and more. He describes the pros and cons of these commonly used industry benchmarks with key insights into often-quoted statistics. Take away an approach that Jim has used successfully with companies to help them gain an understanding of the relationship between the demographics, practices, and performance in their groups and how these relate to external benchmarks.

Many people talk about an end-to-end software development process in which requirements are developed and transitioned seamlessly into code with tests tracing back to the requirements. Geree Streun has learned that an integrated configuration management system should be at the center of that process. She explains the criteria for evaluating and selecting a configuration management tool to support your development process and why configuration management should be implemented in an integrated way. Find out what an integrated configuration management tool can do for you, how much control to impose, and how much administration you can afford. Watch a demonstration of the integrated configuration management system Geree's company uses to record defects against any software artifact and to ensure that tests track to the current version of the requirements.