Software testing procedure is an essential stage in the development of a solid and powerful application. A critical role is played by documentation for achieving effective software testing. The software testing procedure is made easy and organized by buying it, and also, the company saves money and time spent on that software project. It becomes easy for the client to review the software process with proper documentation. In this article, we will be discussing a test plan in software testing that is a type of software documentation.
What is a Test Plan in Software Testing?
A test plan in software testing is a document that outlines what, when, how, who, and more of a testing project. Details about the testing scope, what the testing items are, who will do which testing task, what the items test for pass criteria will be and what is required for setting up the test environment, and much more are contained in a test plan.
Planning is the first step of a software testing process. a test plan document outlines plans for the complete test process. It also has guidelines for the testing process, such as approach, testing tasks, environment needs, resource requirements, schedule, and constraints.
A test plan explains the full process of what we will do for putting the software through its spaces in a step-by-step format. When we have a test plan vs test strategy in place in a software testing project, there are chances that it will go smoother.
What are the Benefits of a Test Plan?
The value for writing a plan is enormous as it offers a lot of benefits like:
- A roadmap towards the testing process is for ensuring our test project is successful and controlling risk.
- A schedule for testing activities is provided by a proper test plan to have a rough estimation of the time and effort required for completing that software project.
- The roles and responsibilities of every team are clearly defined, and the test resource requirements are outlined that are necessary for carrying out the testing process.
- An appropriate Test Schedule would encourage closer contact with other members of the project teams, testers, partners and managers.
- It also helps people outside the test team like developers, business managers, customers properly understanding every detail of testing.
Even though there are many advantages of performing smoke testing, testers might choose not to write one arguing for reasons like time, challenges, and repetition restrictions.
What Will Happen When we Don’t Have a Test Plan?
- The testing procedure will have difficulty in defining the scope of testing.
- There might be a misunderstanding about roles and responsibilities, and it male lead to significant tasks left undone.
- Test teams will not have clear test objectives and fundamental system characteristics may not be properly tested.
- The test team may not be aware when the testing procedure may negotiate with the software’s quality, functionality, effectiveness, and performance.
So it becomes obvious that writing a test plan has a lot of advantages and disadvantages. Now we know that making a test plan vs test strategy is the essential task of the test management process.
How to Write a Good Test Plan?
We could follow these six steps for writing an efficient test plan:
Step 1: Analyzing the Test Product
We can’t test a product without any knowledge about it. Hence, creating a test plan is analyzing the product, its features, and functionalities. We should have a proper understanding of all the user requirements and expectations.
Step 2: Developing a Test Strategy
We are required to design a test strategy that will help us define the testing scope once we have analyzed the product. We can compose a test strategy for different testing techniques. By keeping the user requirements in mind, we should choose which technique we should use. For example, if we are building a website with thousands of online users, we will be including load testing in our test plan.
Step 3: Defining Objectives
The main objective of any software project is to release high-quality and bug-free software products in the market on time. So as a part of the test plan, we must define the testing scope and its boundaries clearly. We can follow these two simple steps for defining test objectives. Listing all the software features that may require testing. Defining the target of testing depends on the features listed previously.
Step 4: Resource Planning
The resource plan is usually a detailed summary of all the resources required to complete a project task. Resources here could be human, equipment, and materials required for completing the project. It is an important step that helps us in determining the number of resources used for the project.
Step 5: Developing a Schedule
With knowledge of testing strategy and scope in hand, our next step is developing a schedule for testing. It will be a great help if we create a schedule for controlling the progress of the testing process. We should consider factors like project estimate, project risk estimate, resource estimate, employee roles and responsibilities, and test activity deadlines while designing a schedule.
Step 6: Determining Test Deliverables
The last step is preparing a detailed test of deliverables documents. It is a record of all the documents, tools, and other components required to be developed and maintained for supporting the testing effort. There are various test deliverables at every phase of the software development life cycle.
Also read: All About Test Plans
Conclusion
The test plan could be understood as a guidebook for the testing process, and we need to keep the whole testing process on the right track. If we do have a solid plan and test plan document in place, there are chances that the testing process will run smoother. It brings us to the end of the article. We hope that the things you have learned today in this article will help you win your software testing journey.
