In this part of “How to Create a Robust Test Plan”, we will briefly explain the stages of creating a robust test plan. If you haven’t read yet, first you can read the previous part of this blog series. The following are some actions you may take to create a detailed and complete test strategy for your testing projects:

The first thing to do for designing a solid test plan is a thorough examination of the software product that will be tested. Before you write a single test case, you must have a thorough grasp of the application’s functionality and performance. You should understand how end customers want to use the product and what they anticipate from the offering.

If possible, reviewing the software product documentation is the greatest approach to get insight into an application’s capabilities and attributes. If documentation is not available, you can gather information by discussing with the technical and product teams and experimenting with the product yourself. Meetings with consumers can also help in gaining more knowledge of the product in a shorter time.

With a clear understanding about the product, the QA team can create a comprehensive test plan while keeping all needs in mind.

The project’s aim and goals, as well as how they connect to business and development tasks, are described in depth in the approach to testing. The tasks and responsibilities could also be mentioned in a plan. This brief section’s primary objective is to get parties ready for the next stage, which describes the methodology and extent to be used to implement the strategy. This portion is also used to guarantee harmony.

In this stage, the testing scope is defined, and the testing techniques are chosen. The parts of the system that need to be tested to guarantee a correctly functioning application are usually referred to as the testing scope of a software application.

Setting standards with all stakeholders and ensuring that testing meets business requirements require clearly defining what is included and what is excluded from the testing scope. The research from the previous stages is extremely important in determining the precise testing scope.

Finding the appropriate methods for testing for your project is the next stage after the scope has been precisely outlined. Based on your approach, your testing techniques outline how to accomplish your testing goals.

The test strategy should give priority to a few key categories, including unit testing, stress testing, system testing, performance testing, and regression testing, even though there are many different kinds of testing methods that can be used.

As the testing team becomes knowledgeable of the areas they need to cover during testing, outlining the scope of the testing and developing basic testing methodologies enables the testing team to carry out comprehensive testing later on.

During this phase, it is advised to successfully communicate with the development staff. Because they are engaged in the development of every product feature and are knowledgeable about the technical details of key functionalities, developers occasionally may propose methods to evaluate functionality in a better way.

The group of measures used to evaluate the test findings are referred to as the test criteria. These criteria should be used to evaluate your test findings when establishing the success or failure percentage of your test instances.

You need to identify completion criteria for the collection of preset tasks or particular requirements that must be met in order to successfully complete a test cycle as the point at which the testing cycle is considered complete. For instance, you might decide to declare the testing cycle complete when 90 out of 100 test cases that were executed as part of the test cycle were properly completed.

To put it more simply, this stage establishes the pass and fail standards for each element of the application that will be tested. Otherwise, the testing team won’t know when to cease running test cycles in iterations. It’s crucial to establish some type of baseline criteria for each case.

It is also very important to keep in mind that based on the test approach, the definition of success can change on each test.

Performance testing metrics, like reaction time and the number of requests processed per second, will also be crucial when assessing the success rate of a software application in load testing challenges.

The primary task of this stage is to gather all the components needed for the testing project’s successful completion. Both the project’s funding and requirements should be taken into consideration when making the choice. All of these elements are included in a thorough way in a well-constructed test plan.

By including all of these criteria in your test plan, you make it simpler for the test supervisor and development team to prepare all of the necessary resources before the testing process starts.

Establishing the testing timetable for the complete testing project is one of the final steps in creating your test plan. A test schedule should be made by breaking the testing job down into smaller tasks and operations. Following that, you can assign those specific duties to your team members and set due dates.

The test manager and organizational leadership will benefit from having a project schedule to measure and oversee the testing project’s development.

As a result, it’s critical that a project plan include targets for testing duties that are appropriate. When creating a testing timetable, it’s crucial to account for variables like possible obstacles, employee schedules, and project deadlines.

Deliverables for software testing are a collection of items and documents that the testing team creates and keeps up to date throughout the course of the project. According to the stage in which they are put together, these deliverables are further divided into three major types:

• Outputs made available before testing
• Outputs that are created throughout tests
• Outputs delivered following testing

In order to help the team comprehend the general scope of the testing project, a comprehensive document called the test plan is created before testing. Likewise, the team must develop a set of precise test cases that satisfy the projects’ criteria before starting the real testing process.

Making test data is a crucial step in the testing process if you want to evaluate the software elements effectively. Additionally, the testing team creates documented records for every problem and issue found during the testing process.

The QA team must produce a thorough test summary document that breaks down the testing findings after completing the testing process. The most significant output is this report, which management and partners use to assess the final results of the testing project and choose their next course of action to build the final item.

A breakdown of the parameters and KPIs utilized for evaluating the performance of your testing project should be included in this test report. The following are just a few examples of the most common testing KPIs:

• Issue Description: Major, Minor, Severe, etc.
• Number of Issues: Indicates the quantity of problems that are still open and unresolved.
• Coverage rate: Describes the proportion of test instances to specifications. In general, at least one test scenario must be assigned to each criterion.
• Issue Resolution/Turnaround Time: Describes how long the development team needs to fix problems.
• Testing Duration: Describes how long it takes the QA team to thoroughly test and document any problems with a given software package.

One of the pillars of creating a great software product is carrying out extensive and detailed test planning. Teams can manage and record the complete testing process with the aid of software test plans. Delivering an easy to use and exceptional program requires this. Although the process might appear to be resource-intensive, it actually helps save resources when the plan is executed and, as a result, when features are introduced.

The following step would be to select a thorough and outstanding software testing tool to carry out the test plan as easily as possible once you are ready to execute your test strategy. Learn more about how Loadium can help you achieve your goals with exceptional performance testing, load testing, and more here.