Test plans-Design guidelines

What is a Test Plan?

A test plan is a detailed document that outlines the test strategy, Testing objectives, resources (manpower, software, hardware) required for testing, test schedule, test estimation and test deliverables.
The test plan serves as a blueprint to conduct software testing activities as a defined process which is minutely monitored and controlled by the test manager.
Let’s start with following scenario
In a meeting, you want to discuss the Test Plan with the team members, but they are not interested - .

Importance of Test Plan

Making Test Plan has multiple benefits

• Test Plan helps us determine the effort needed to validate the quality of the application  under test
• Help people outside the test team such as developers, business managers, customers understand the details of testing.
• Test Plan guides our thinking. It is like a rule book, which needs to be followed.
• Important aspects like test estimation, test scope, test strategy are documented in Test Plan, so it can be reviewed by Management Team and re-used for other projects.

How to write a Test Plan

You already know that making a Test Plan is the most important task of Test Management Process. Follow the seven steps below to create a test plan as per IEEE 829

1. Analyze the product
2. Design the Test Strategy
3. Define Test Criteria
4. Define the Test Objectives
5. Resource Planning
6. Plan Test Environment
7. Schedule & Estimation
8. Determine Test Deliverables

Step 1) Analyze the product

How can you test a product without any information about it? The answer is Impossible. You must learn a product thoroughly before testing it.
The product under test is Guru99 banking website. You should research clients and the end users to know their needs and expectations from the application

• Who will use the website?
• What is it used for?
• How will it work?
• What are software/ hardware the product uses?

Step 2) Develop Test Strategy

Test Strategy is a critical step in making a Test Plan. A Test Strategy document, is a high-level document, which is usually developed by Test Manager. This document defines:

• The project’s testing objectives and the means to achieve them
• Determines testing effort and costs

Step 3) Define Test Objective

Test Objective is the overall goal and achievement of the test execution. The objective of the testing is finding as many software defects as possible; ensure that the software under test is bug freebefore release.
To define the test objectives, you should do 2 following steps

1. List all the software features (functionality, performance, GUI…) which may need to test.
2. Define the target or the goal of  the test based on  above features

Step 4) Define Test Criteria

Test Criteria is a standard or rule on which a test procedure or test judgment can be based. There’re 2 types of test criteria as following

Suspension Criteria

Specify the critical suspension criteria for a test. If the suspension criteria are met during testing, the active test cycle will be suspended until the criteria are resolved.

Step 5) Resource Planning

Resource plan is a detailed summary of all types of resources required to complete project task. Resource could be human, equipment and materials needed to complete a project
The resource planning is important factor of the test planning because helps in determining the number of resources (employee, equipment…) to be used for the project. Therefore, the Test Manager can make the correct schedule & estimation for the project.

Step 6) Plan Test Environment

What is the Test Environment

A testing environment is a setup of software and hardware on which the testing team is going to execute test cases. The test environment consists of real business and user environment, as well as physical environments, such as server, front end running environment.

Step 7) Schedule & Estimation

In the article Test estimation, you already used some techniques to estimate the effort to complete the project. Now you should include that estimation as well as the schedule to the Test Planning
In the Test Estimation phase, suppose you break out the whole project into small tasks and add the estimation for each task as below

Task	Members	Estimate effort
Create the test specification	Test Designer	170 man-hour
Perform Test Execution	Tester, Test Administrator	80 man-hour
Test Report	Tester	10 man-hour
Test Delivery		20 man-hour
Total		280 man-hour

Step 8) Test Deliverables

Test Deliverables is a list of all the documents, tools and other components that has to be developed and maintained in support of the testing effort.
There are different test deliverables at every phase of the software development lifecycle.

Test deliverables are provided before testing phase.

• Test plans document.
• Test cases documents
• Test Design specifications.

Test deliverables are provided during the testing

• Test Scripts
• Simulators.
• Test Data
• Test Traceability Matrix
• Error logs and execution logs.

Test deliverables are provided after the testing cycles is over.

• Test Results/reports
• Defect Report
• Installation/ Test procedures guidelines
• Release notes