Test PlanningQuestions To Ask WhenTest Planning

Everything you need to trigger thoughts, discussions and actions in the projects you are working on

(a c

heck

list)

www.smartbear.comEBOK_20131127_V2_QUESTIONS

Strategy

❑ Who is the project for?

❑ Who is the customer?

❑ Why is this project important to the customer and what are their goals and priorities?

❑ What’s in scope?

❑ What’s not in scope?

❑ How flexible is the scope?

❑ What are the project risks we’re aware of?

❑ What are the product risks we’re aware of?

❑ What is expected from testers on this project?

❑ Are you in agreement with what is expected?

❑ What are the priorities?

❑ What problems have happened in the past?

❑ Do you have a back up plan?

❑ How much time do you have?

❑ How flexible is the time frame?

❑ Is there enough time?

❑ What test deliverables and reports do we need to give to the customer?

❑ What reports do we need for the test team?

❑ Are there any standards you need to adhere to?

❑ What’s the budget, how will progress be tracked?

❑ How are the testers being kept up-to-date?

❑ What are the key test and release milestones?

❑ Who is doing the testing?

❑ Who else is involved?

❑ What learning needs to happen?

❑ How well do testers know the product? ❑ What learning do testers need to do to work effectively? ❑ What people and resources are available to teach?

When starting a project, do you ever worry that you’ll forget to ask the right kind of questions? The checklist below will guide and trigger important questions that you should be asking when starting software testing project.

www.smartbear.comEBOK_20131127_V2_QUESTIONS

Testing Approach Resources

❑ What type of testing is needed?

❑ Accessibility ❑ User ❑ Functional ❑ Performance ❑ Installation ❑ Compatibility ❑ Usability ❑ Security ❑ Automation

❑ How will builds be delivered for testing?

❑ How will you decide whether the build is reliable enough for testing?

❑ Has the development and test-ing team agreed upon object parameters and IDs?

❑ What documentation is avail-able?

❑ How will testing be tracked?

❑ Test cases ❑ Session based test

management ❑ Test management tools ❑ Checklists ❑ Mindmaps ❑ Spreadsheets ❑ Bug tracker

❑ How are we going to get realistic test data?

❑ How frequent are code changes being made?

❑ What resources do you have available?

❑ Testers ❑ Project staff ❑ Contractors / consultants ❑ Hardware ❑ Software ❑ Training

❑ What information is available?

❑ Documentation ❑ User manuals ❑ User stories ❑ Online reviews & social media ❑ People - who is available to inform testers? ❑ Are there historical issues testers should be aware of? ❑ What comparable products are on the market?

❑ What hardware or software is needed to test?

❑ What is required to set up any hardware or software?

www.smartbear.comEBOK_20131127_V2_QUESTIONS

The Product Question Your Personal Ethics Resources

❑ Who will be using the product?

❑ What should it do?

❑ What should it never do?

❑ What is the problem this project is attempting to solve?

❑ How does this project interact with known prob-lem areas in the application?

❑ Does this project require modifications to core legacy code?

❑ Where does the project fit with existing function-ality?

❑ Where could it clash with existing features?

❑ Have you covered all product elements? For example:

❑ Functionality ❑ User flow ❑ Data ❑ User Interfaces ❑ The platform and how it all fits together

Sometimes it’s important to ask some “Devil’s Advocate” questions up front before creating a test plan. Some of them are for other people to answer, but some are for you to consider.

❑ Even if I am capable of doing this, do I want to tackle this testing job?

❑ Do I share the same testing philosophy as my team?

❑ Are there moral or philosophical aspects of the appli-cation that are unacceptable to me?

❑ Can we realistically expect the application to do all of the things we are proposing?

❑ If it doesn’t meet up with expectations, what failures would be considered a project “killer?” Can we test those aspects earlier in the process?

❑ What aspects of the application or system design are the most dangerous?

❑ What happens if the application fails?

❑ What happens if someone wanted the application to fail? How would you know?

Download the eBook

What’s the next step?

Get started with testing now.

❑ Many thanks to the Software Testing Club community members

for sharing their time and knowledge to create this checklist.