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Building A Test Strategy
Take Longer to Deliver Sooner
As with many things in life, it makes sense to take some time before to prepare before undertaking a programme of testing. Getting off to the right start, with a clear scope and objective, all the necessary resources marshalled ready to go will pay dividends as the testing enters the execution phase, both in terms of ensuring you have the best chance of success, but also in ensuring that the testing meets the needs of the business or customer. At Roque we constantly advise clients that they should “ Take longer to deliver sooner”.
The strategy should cover a number of key components;
Objectives
These should be tailored to fit the project, not over or under testing the application. The objectives will be driven by the stakeholders and available documentation. To define your objective:
• Read all available materials including;
Project Initiation Document
Requirements Specification
Business Justification Document etc.
• Publish and invite comments on an initial Test Approach
• Arrange workshops with key stakeholders
• Get out and about in the business
Scope
What’s in and what’s out of scope for testing should be clearly defined and agreed with all stakeholders. Scope covers not only the areas to be tested, but the environments, data, tools reporting and responsibilities as well. The strategy ‘Scope’ section should detail the following:
• The testing processes
• ‘What’ to test
• ‘When’ to test
• What testing deliverables (work products) are to be produced
• What test environments are to be used
• How testing adheres to the projects Governance process
• What tools will be used to support testing
• How to determine when to start and stop testing (Entry/Exit criteria)
• What Metrics and Reports are to be generated
• Testing Roles and Responsibilities
Rationale
You need to justify your approach to testing to your stake holders. The work you have undertaken to define the objectives and scope for testing should inform your approach and forms the basis of your rationale.
• Detail the approach chosen (risk based, time boxed, iterative, exhaustive, etc,).
• Explain the thought process that led you to adopt the given approach
• See validation and confirmation of your approach
Test Phases
List and describe the test phases to be undertaken, making it clear who is responsible for each. Detail the resources required and staff involved in each phase A diagram helps visualise the sequence and a phase definition helps all involved ‘speak the same language’
• Each phase should have its own objectives
• Each phase should have a detailed set of related activities
• Each phase should have a set of work products
• Each test phase should be subject to specific entry and exit criteria
• Test phases can sometimes overlap
Work Products/Deliverables
This section details what is going to be produced in terms of plans, specifications, metrics and reports. These might include
• Test Strategy
• Master Test Plan
• High Level Test Specification
• Acceptance Criteria
• Test Environment Requirements
• Detailed Test Plan
• Detailed Test Specification
• Test Procedures
• Acceptance Criteria/Test Specification Matrix
• Test Execution Schedule
• Environment Utilisation Plan
• Test Results Report
• Incident Report
• End of Phase Test Report
Environments
Ensuring that you have the right environment to test in is essential. When defining test environment requirements, consider the following:
• Environment volume/capacity
• Data Requirements
• Interfaces
• Hardware/Software
• Migration procedures
• Availability
• Backup and Recovery
• Test Cycles
• Access requirements.
Exit and Entry Criteria
Entry and exit criteria allow us to control the pace of the project and the quality of the material we get to work on. The template lists a number of suggested criteria by phase.
• The entry criteria for one phase will often include all or some of the exit criteria from the previous one
• The entry and exit criteria should state the number of outstanding incidents at the various severity levels that can be tolerated in the next stage
• Exit criteria from certain phases refer to a % or number of tests by priority, that have to have been executed.
Use The Force
Test Managers struggling to write a test strategy can sometimes overlook the fact that there is a lot of knowledge and guidance available to them within their organisation. Roque has found that running a series of stakeholder workshops with the relevant users, developers, business experts and suppliers can be an incredible powerful way of building the strategy and ensuring early buy in and sign off.
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