Leo van der Aalst’s Acknowledgements

People close to me know how much I love to write, in particular to share my thoughts and knowledge, so when Rex gave me the opportunity to coauthor this book I immediately said yes. Rex, thank you very much for asking me to be a coauthor of this book.

When I mention Rex, I must mention Jim at the same time. Jim provided me with very helpful hints on improving both the content of the chapters and my Dutch English. And, of course, Rex did the same. Their appreciation and interest proved a huge stimulus. Moreover, not only did the content improve from their very helpful comments, but personally I’ve learned a lot about the English language as well!

Me coauthoring this book would not have been possible without the support of the management team of Sogeti. In particular, I wish to thank Marco van den Brink, Hans Kapteijns, and Berend Roukes, who gave me the leeway needed to contribute to this book.

The person who suffered the most from my writing activities is for sure my wife, Carla. Although I knew we had made other commitments certain evenings and weekends with family, friends, and so on, often I went down to my study to process and write down the ideas that popped up in my head just before we would have left our house. Thank you, Carla, for supporting me in my writing activities.

I worked on this book with great enthusiasm. Whether you are an experienced test manager or an inexperienced tester, I hope this book offers you a clear story on how to best manage testing in all its aspects and inspire you with many ideas, detailed information, tips, and real-life stories. I—and I’m pretty sure this applies to Jim and Rex as well—am proud of the result and hope you, our reader, will agree.