7 Steps to Develop Good Test Strategy Document

7 Steps to Develop Good Test Strategy Document

Test Strategy is very important for QA team. It defines the main goals that need to be achieved and the main measures used to implement these goals into reality.

Clearly articulated plan determines the scale of the project and helps team to take into account all the activities related to testing process. Unfortunately, many testers build such documents but don’t use it while test execution. Let’s try to contemplate the normal steps of test strategy document:

STEP 1: SCOPE AND OVERVIEW

The next aspects should be covered on this stage:

• ascertain persons who should acknowledge, review and use this document.
• defining phases of the project in accordance with time-lines with specified in the test plan.
• other elements that can be included in this document at the discretion of its sides.

STEP 2: TESTING APPROACH

Define testing process, level of testing, roles and responsibilities of every team member.This step should be developed most carefully to avoid further messy in case if something going wrong. And the main issues that should be considered are:

• distribution of responsibilities among team,
• ascertain test owners, when to start, testing approaches, tool if applicable, etc.

STEP 3: TESTING ENVIRONMENT

The main questions that should be covered aimed at defining the next aspects regarding test dataTest environment setup should outline information about number of environments and required setup for each environment.

• Requirements – Defining test data requirements is equally important. Provide clear instruction on how to create test data  should be provided;
• Backup and restore strategy – Backup and restore process should define who will take backups, when to take backup, what to include in backup, when to restore database, who will restore it

So, try to choose people who will take backup, to detect when it should be taken and when to restore data.

STEP 4: TESTING TOOLS

Define test management and automation tools required for test execution. For performance, load and security testing describe the test approach and tools required. Mention whether it is open source or commercial tool and how many users are supported on it and plan accordingly.Now you need to choose all the tools will be used while test execution. Take into account whether it is commercial or open source tool, the scale of its community, etc.

STEP 5: RELEASE CONTROL

To ensure successful test execution, make sure your release management plan had been created thoughtfully. Thus, set build management process to know forward where new build should made available, deployed, when to get new build, etc.

STEP 6: RISK ANALYSIS

Try to foresee all the possible risks related to your project. Build a clear plan to avoid such risks and a contingency plan in case of realization of the risks.

STEP 7: REVIEW AND APPROVALS

The ready plan must be verified and confirmed by managers, team leads from system administration team, business team and development team. Also test strategy document can be updated with testing process latest changes.

 [content by : webwing technologies.pvt.ltd]