7 Steps to Develop Good Test Strategy Document
What is a Testing Strategy Document?
Test Strategy document (Test Approach document) is a static document that specifies how QA process is carried out in the company. It defines the main goals that need to be achieved and measures used to implement them. Clearly written testing strategy determines the scale of the project and helps the team take into account all the activities related to the testing process. Unfortunately, not all software development and testing companies ask their Project Managers and testers to build such documents. Even if they do, QA experts sometimes ignore strategic documentation while working on some project. Today we will dive into the concept of Test Approach document so that it’s clearly understandable why it’s so important for testing engineers to use it as an everyday guidance.
The key components of the Test Strategy document are as follows:
- Scope and objectives
- Business industry standards to follow
- Key business issues to pay attention to
- Roles and responsibilities
- Status reporting
- Testing tools
- Possible risks and ways to leverage them
- Configuration or changes management
- Issues tracking and reporting
- Test deliverables
Now, let’s proceed to the preparation process itself. We will break it down into several steps and define what is needed to create a Testing Strategy document.
How to prepare Test Strategy: scope
This stage is fundamental as it shapes testing company’s vision. It includes:
- dividing roles and responsibilities, deciding who should approve, review and use this document;
- defining phases of each project according to the timelines that are specified in the test plan.
How to prepare Test Strategy: approach
This step should be well-thought to avoid further mess in case something goes wrong. The main points to be considered at this stage are:
- testing process and life cycle;
- distribution of responsibilities among the team of QA engineers;
- defining all testing types that company can provide the client with;
- establishing testing approaches.
How to prepare Test Strategy: environment
This stage of Test Strategy document has to cover the next aspects regarding test data:
- requirements – the clear instruction on how to create test data;
- environments and all required setups for each of them;
- backup and restore strategy to make sure you won’t lose any data due to some unexpected code issues.
How to write a Test Strategy: tools
At this point you need to choose all the tools that will be used for test execution. All commercial, open source, automation and management tools have to be listed here.
How to write a Test Strategy: release
To ensure successful test execution, make sure your release management plan is created thoughtfully. Thus, set a build management process to know where new build should be available, when it’s going to be deployed, who should deploy it, how to stop release in case of issues, etc.
How to prepare Test Strategy: risks
Try to foresee all possible risks related to your project. Write a clear plan to avoid such risks and a contingency plan in case these risks become a reality.
How to write a Test Strategy: review and approval
The ready plan must be reviewed and approved by managers, technical team leaders, business development, and software development teams. Also Test Strategy document can be updated in case some important changes occur in the course of the testing process.
Development of a Testing Strategy document is a crucial step on the way to the rapid and effective testing process which then will make a solid background for a powerful and bug-free application. To make sure it brings results, testing should be fully documented to provide efficient resource control, monitoring, and allocation.
At Testfort, we make sure that every test case and its outcomes are noted down in QA documentation, while all detected bugs are classified for easy management and fixing. Contact us, our team is ready to test your applications on all stages of development, thus guaranteeing its smooth performance after an app goes to the production.
