Test Management –Test Planning

Test Plan is for us a test plan is the project plan for the testing work to
be done.
What is planning for Test activities?
Deciding answers for,
 What to test?
Is it the bottle or is it the liquid inside the bottle that is to be
tested
 How to test?
Which test type? Which technique? What levels of testing? How
many cycles?
 When to test?
Dates / Schedules / Timelines etc
 Who to test?
Mr. X / Miss Y etc

Test
Plan Test
v1.0 Plan Test
v2.0 Plan
v3.0

Test plan can also be a multiple level document

IEEE 829 STANDARD TEST PLAN TEMPLATE
1. Test plan identifier:
2. Introduction
3. Test items
4. Features to be tested
5. Features not to be tested
6. Approach :Test Types, Techniques, levels, cycles
7. Item pass/fail criteria :
8. Suspension and resumption criteria
9. Test deliverables
10. Test tasks:-
11. Environmental needs:-
12. Responsibilities
13. Staffing and training needs
14. Schedule
15. Risks and contingencies
16. Approvals

Test Independence
 What is test independence or independent testing?
 Testing by someone other than the creator is Independent
testing
 Why?
Creator / author may not be able to identify defects in his
own work
 Test Independence Levels
 Benefits of Independent Testing
- Independent Testers are unbiased
- Independent Tester sees other and more defects than the
author
- Independent testers can verify the assumptions made by
author

 Drawbacks of Independent Testing

- Isolation from the development team
- Independent testers may be the bottleneck
- Developers may lose sense of responsibility to quality
Test leader tasks
- Plan the tests:
- Based on the risks, context & objective
- select test approach;
- estimate time, effort and cost;
- define test levels, test techniques, test cycles;
- define criteria for entry, exit, suspension & resumption
- select suitable metrics for test progress monitoring
- select suitable test environment
- select suitable configuration management
- select suitable incident management
 - Initiate and monitor
o Test Analysis and design
o Implementation and execution
- Monitor test activities and act to control if necessary
- Contribute the testing perspective to other activities –
Integration planning
- Monitor test results and check for exit criteria
- Decide what should be automated and to what degree
- Select tools to support testing
- Write test summary reports
- Write or review test strategy for the project and test
policy for the organization
- Coordinate test strategy and test plan with project
managers and others

Tester tasks
- Analyze and review requirements for testability
- Create test specifications
o Test condition specifications
o Test case specification
o Test procedure specification
- Setup test environment
- Prepare / Acquire test data
- Execute tests and record results
- Evaluate the results and document deviations from
expected result
- Prepare test metrics and report
- Automate tests
- Review tests developed by others
 - Review and contribute to test plans

Test Management –Configuration Management (CM)

Configuration items; (identify what needs to be tracked for change and what
needs to be shared)
Data and documentation (development and testing), Test Object, Test
scripts, third-party Software, and Test environment.
Configuration Management????
Establish, Maintain integrity & traceability of Configuration items
Benefits of Configuration Management
1. version control
2. centralized access
3. privileged access
4. traceability

IEEE 829 STANDARD: TEST ITEM TRANSMITTAL REPORT

TEMPLATE

1. Transmittal report identifier

2. Transmitted items
3. Location
4. Status
5. Approvals

Test Management – Risk

Risk is……..
a chance of something going wrong
Product Risk
Things may go wrong with the quality of the software after release
Error prone software
Poor software quality characteristics (usability, performance etc)
Functionality may not work properly
Defects in the software leading to injuries / death
Level of Risk = Probability of a negative event x impact if it did happen
Mitigation Plan Contingency Plan
Project Risk
Things may go wrong with implementation of project
Project may get delayed
Budget may be exceeded
Build delays
Skill and staff shortages
Personal and training issues
Internal politics
Key resources moving out of the organization
Failure of a third party to deliver
Contractual issues, such as meeting acceptance criteria
Problems in defining the right requirements
Quality of the design / development / test team
Technical issues
Incident management