About Ervin S. Wright

Ervin S. Wright has spent over two decades delivering high-impact software projects and quality assurance initiatives for global blue-chip organizations, including Repsol, Arcelor, BBVA, France Telecom, Barclays, La Caixa, and Volkswagen. With an MBA, PMP, and PSM certifications, he has led critical tier-1 programs and portfolios, mastering the complexities of software development lifecycles, risk management, and quality assurance in both startup agility and enterprise rigor.

After the success of his first book, Testing, Simplified — The ISTQB Foundation Without the Fog, Ervin heard the same message repeatedly from readers: "When are you writing the Advanced Level book?"

The answer is now.

The Advanced Level presented a different challenge. Foundation level is about learning the rules. Advanced level is about developing judgment — knowing when to follow the rules, when to bend them, and when to set them aside entirely. This is harder to teach, and even harder to write about without becoming abstract and academic.

Ervin's approach remains the same: treat testing as a profoundly human, intellectual endeavor that bridges technology, risk, and business value. Explain concepts with clarity, real-world relevance, and respect for the practitioner's daily challenges.

Use worked examples, not just definitions. Show the thinking behind the decisions. Throughout his career, Ervin has observed that the best test analysts are not the ones who know the most techniques. They're the ones who know which technique to apply, when to apply it, and how to explain their reasoning to stakeholders who don't speak "testing." They're the ones who prevent defects, not just find them. They're the ones who influence quality across the entire development process, not just in the testing phase.

These books exist to help you become that person.

The same approach carries across the rest of the Without the Fog series. ITIL 5 Foundation Without the Fog and PRINCE2 7 Foundation Without the Fog get the same treatment as the ISTQB titles — syllabus-accurate, worked examples over bare definitions, and written the way a colleague would explain it rather than the way an official manual does.