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Showing posts with label Plan your Activities of Testing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Plan your Activities of Testing. Show all posts

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Are we Ready for Testing?

Are we having our plans in place? We need to have our plans in place else we will be in for a big trouble. Planning is indeed a very important and integral part of our testing process. It is not advisable to go for testing without a proper planning.

A Test Planning is the initial stage that is used by us before we start working on any testing project.A Test Plan Document is prepared which basically contains all the necessary actions & procedures that are needed for the execution of testing.

As Per WikiPedia Definition : A Test Plan is a "A test plan is a document detailing a systematic approach to testing a system such as a machine or software. The plan typically contains a detailed understanding of what the eventual workflow will be."

I define them as "It is a guiding document for any testing project. It is important that a Test plan goes for a review and update itself with the review comments."
Please Find below the contents of a Test Plan:
1.Definition :
It defines the overall purpose of Testing this application/s/w.
2.Roles & Responsibilities:
The people who are involved and what is their role in this project will be defined in this section.
3.Testing Requirements:
The environments, the date and the place the bug tracking tool is kept and all the necessary test environment needed for the execution of testing is defined in this section.
4.Resources:
Resources should include representatives from all areas involved in the application. It will be good that we include representatives from across the systems as it benefits us in validating the systems functions before the upgrade goes live in production.
5.Testing Schedule:
A Testing Schedule contains activities on:

Identify and select testers for Testing
Develop test scenarios and scripts/cases
Validate participants availability for testing
Review scenarios/scripts for accuracy, completeness and sequence
Ensure Testing configuration for testing activities
Testing environment validation
Testing by Testing participants

along with the above information we should also include the resources responsible with the end date for each activity will be recorded for tracking purpose.

6.Assumptions and Risks
Some of the Assumptions of Testing Project are:
Assume#1:The Testing environment will be available and desktops will be available to
perform testing.
Assume#2:The Business team has reviewed and accepted functionality identified in the
business requirements and software requirements documents.
Assume#3:Code walkthroughs/reviews will be completed by the development team.

Some of the Risks of Testing Project are:
Risk #1 - Resources and the Mitigation plan is to have resources in place & also keep the HR help in finding the right resources incase of need.
Risk #2 - Knowledge and the Mitigation plan is to attend required trainings and update the knowledge.
Risk #3 - Timelines and Mitigation Plan is to have the necessary resources and also incase the timelines is not feasible speak out earlier rather than in the end.This will avoid confusion.

7.Additional Project Documents
In this section we will list down all the required documents and also submit all the supportive documents and also specify the area where the documents are located for verification.
8.Sign-off and Acknowledgement
Once the project is completed the Test Manager will sign in the section and also specifying to state that the testing is complete and the quality is ensured it is ready for use.

Once we have the test plan it is important we share it across the senior management and also with respective people who are related with the project. This will make way for clear transition among people working in the project and also the testing goals of the project will be very clear.
Hope you all find this article useful. See you all soon with another exciting article on testing...