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1echExcel Devest
TechExcel
 White Paper
Product testing is more complicated, labor-intensive, and time-consuming than ever beore.Businesses are demanding greater openness, transparency, and scalability rom their sofwareinvestments—they looking or versatile solutions that enable them connect users and resources worldwide while leveraging their existing investments.As a result, contemporary business applications run on many dierent platorms and in manydierent environments, support integration with emerging technologies and legacy systems,and eature add-on modules that support every imaginable business process. All this versatilityhas multiplied the number o variables that may aect the perormance application making thetask o testing sofware more complicated and time-consuming than over beore.But the same orces that drive the demand or these applications also require that these products be delivered to market as quickly as possible—i not sooner. QA organizations areunder increasing pressure to complete their testing in ever-shorter time rames. And, as i this were not enough, these challenges are compounded by hectic development schedules thatintroduce problems all their own—new eatures may suddenly appear or disappear, the designand unctionality o product eatures ofen change to meet the demands o the marketplace orto accommodate tight schedules.o meet these challenges, QA organizations are pursuing several dierent strategies—beginning their test planning earlier in the development lie cycle, leveraging the resultso previous test eorts, improving the management o testing data, and reusing existing testcoverage. And increasingly, many testing organizations are abandoning outmoded paper-basedsystems and turning to sofware test management solutions to organize, plan, and analyze theirtesting eorts.
Improve test productivity and product qualitythrough test management
echExcel Devest
 
2echExcel Devest
TechExcel
 White Paper
 Why Test Management?
In the past, testing organizations could rely on paper-based solutions to plan, design, manage, and track their testing projects. Older technologiesdid not require the same degree o planning and organization as docontemporary sofware suites—they lacked the portability, the versatility,and extensibility.But even with simple applications, paper-based systems are merelyadequate. Te lack o organization, poor planning, and ine cientcommunication that are inherit in paper-based systems regularly jeopardizedelivery schedules and, ultimately, jeopardize the quality o the productitsel.In a paper-based system all testing activities are recorded and trackedin static lists, tables, outlines, and matrices created in word processing documents or spreadsheets. Paper-based solutions are di cult to maintain,update, and track. As a result, testing strategies are necessarily straightorward and limited, because testing teams are straitjacketed rom the verystart o the process.Poor or inaccessible documentation and inadequate channels orcommunication make it di cult or QA organizations to adjust to suddenchanges in product design. est plans are requently based on out-datedrequirements documents, and this can lead to test cases that do notadequately test product eatures and unctionality.Understandably, test planning is requently lef to late in the developmentlie cycle when the product approaches some kind o stasis. But delaying test planning creates a whole new set o hurdles. ime pressures mean thatQA organizations must ocus on testing the application at hand and havelittle time to plan ahead or uture release cycles. Hastily created test casesare generally not reusable.est planning e ciency can be improved when the test planners can baseuture test assignments on previous results and an analysis or test or deectdata. But tight schedules mean their is little time or reection or uture planning. And even i there were time, traditional models make it di cultto review previous test data or deect data because it is ofen inaccessible—lost or misplaced in a stack o paper, buried in someone’s inbox, or storedaway somewhere in dierent les or applications. Why test management? Because test management solutions enablebusinesses to work more intelligently and e ciently. est managementsolutions provide ollowing benets:Manage knowledge and acilitate communication:A testmanagement solution provides testers with a centralized andsecure tool through which they may review control documentsand research previously reported bugs. Knowledge collected by thetesting group is accessible to all project members at all times.Enorce the standardization o test cases:A test managementsolution enables the testing group to dene the data they wish totrack and to design a standard interace or collecting and tracking that data. Standards increase e ciency.Promote the creation o reusable test cases:A test managementsolution makes it easy or testing groups to save, manage, and reusetheir most eective test cases.Leverage previous results in test planning:A test managementsolution enables testing groups to plan uture test assignments basedon the analysis previous test results. Instant access to summaryreports enables test planner to improve test e ciency.Respond to issues quicker:A test management solution providesreal-time access to all testing data so that testing groups canimmediately respond to critical test blockers or and other issues.Te aster the team is able to address the critical issues the soonerthe test team may resume their testing.Make inormation accessible:A test management solution providesa test planners with a complete picture o their testing projectso that they better manage their project and they can make thenecessary adjustments to meet testing objectives and deadlines.
Knowledge Management
One key actor to meeting the demands o contemporary sofwaredevelopment is to ensure that all project stakeholders—management,developers, and testers— have access to the most up-todate controldocuments and may eectively communicate with others both within andoutside their organizations and teams—in short, everyone must be on thesame page at all times.o address this issue, echExcel Devest takes a “knowledge-centric”approach to test management that places the collection, management,and distribution o inormation at the core o all development and qualityassurance processes.Knowledge management enables all stakeholders to access, manage, andshare inormation so that QA may make inormed decisions throughoutthe testing process, leverage the inormation collected and generated by••••••
 
3echExcel Devest
TechExcel
 White Paper
development, and learn rom their past successes and ailures so that theymay implement more e cient and intelligent processes.Key components o the Devest approach to knowledge managementinclude a centralized knowledge base, instant access to quality reports, andtools or communicating inormation relevant to individual test cases andthe project as a whole.
Managing Project Knowledge
In Devest, all testers may access a centralized repository o inormationrom within the Devest client. Te Devest knowledge view, powered byechExcel KnowledgeWise, provides development and QA organizations with a tool or collecting and organizing the ideas that drive productdevelopment and testing. All ideas, both ormal and inormal are collectedand managed in the same, centralized knowledge base.echExcel KnowledgeWise is a key component in the echExcelDevSuite o application lie cycle management products. KnowledgeWise provides project managers, designers, developers, testing groups, andsales and marketing departments with a secure repository or all projectdocuments— the project plan, business requirements, unctional andtechnical specications, risk management documents, and corporatestandards and guidelines may be managed in one knowledge base that isshared by the entire business.A centralized knowledge base increases e ciency, prevents the losso inormation, helps to reduce system and maintenance costs, andacilitates collaboration by distributed teams.Access to knowledge items is protected by privilege-based accesscontrols. Te ability o project members to view, edit, lock, checkout, and check in protected les is dened by their role in the project.Built-in version control tools ensure that all project developmentand testing teams (no matter where they are in world) always haveaccess to the most up-to-date documents.
Leveraging Control Documents
A common knowledge base ensures that the QA organization always hasaccess to the latest project control documents —business requirements,unctional and technical specications— and enables them to leverage thisinormation to plan and organize their test plans early in the development processes.In Devest, QA organizations may access project control documents assoon as those documents are uploaded to the knowledge base—at the same•••time they are available to the developers themselves. Access enables the QAorganization to jump-start test planning and develop testing strategies andtest cases in parallel with the implementation o the designs.Using these control documents, testing groups may estimate the scope o the project, allocate resources, and plan appropriate strategies or testing the unctionality and perormance o those eatures.esting groups need not wait or all o the control documents to beapproved beore they begin their test planning. Tey can create test casesand build test planning structures in a piecemeal ashion as the designed product is realized in the knowledge base. With each new controldocument that is added to the knowledge base they can create appropriatetest cases.Ideally, project control documents are complete and approved at thebeginning o the test planning stage. However, the specications anddesigns that are approved at the beginning o the development process maybe sketchy, inadequate, or change signicantly over time due to changes inthe marketplace, technical problems, or time constraints. Devest providestesting groups with the exibility they need to adjust to changes in designor schedule.QA organizations may take an evolutionary approach to test planning.By organizing their test cases by product eatures, they can readilyadjust to changes in product design or changes to the schedule. Teymay create appropriate structures and test cases as the requirements andspecications are completed and update the list to accommodate changesto the application. Devest planning structures and test cases may be easilyedited and updated so that QA organizations need not pay the penalty orchanges in design.
Facilitating Task-level Communication
By placing knowledge management at the core o all development processes, Devest acilitates all project-level and task-level communication. Just as the centralized knowledge base ensures that all stakeholders haveaccess to project inormation, the complete history o every test case andall background inormation is always right at hand. All communication isrecorded and tracked with the test case so that test task itsel is the vehicleor communication. Key inormation cannot be lost in e-mail exchanges orburied in user inboxes.Good notes rom the prior testing enables test team members to pick uptesting where others have lef o. Any testing team member may pick upthe work o another tester, and with a little research understand the test inits entirety.
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