7 Tips on How to Write a Test Plan

by TestFortExpert on 03/25/2013

If you do not like a standard template of a test plan or you decided to come up with your own document format more suitable for you, you should know that a good test plan must at least describe the following:

1. What should be tested?

Description of testing object (system, application, hardware)

2. What will you test?

A list of features and description of the system under test and its components taken separately

3. How are you going to test?

Testing strategy (types of tests and their application)

4. When are you going to test?

Sequence of activities: Test Preparation, Testing, Test Result Analysis in the context of the planned phases of the development

5. Criteria for beginning of testing:

Test platform readiness (testbed)
Completeness of the required functionality development
Availability of all necessary documentation

6. Criteria for ending of testing:

Test results meet the criteria of the product quality:- requirements for the number of open bugs are met- certain period without changing of the source code passed- certain period without opening new bugs passed

Further, to make your document less serious, you should add the following issues to it:

Environment of the system under test (a description of software and hardware)
Required test equipment and software (the test stand and its configuration, software for automated testing, etc.)
Possible risks and risk management

Most often, in practice, one faces with the following types of test plans:

Master Plan or Master Test Plan
Test Plan
Product Acceptance Plan (a document describing a set of actions related to acceptance testing (strategy, date, officials, etc.)

A Master Test Plan is more static in comparison with a simple Test Plan because it contains High Level Information which is not subject to rapid changes in the testing process. A Test Plan that contains more specific information on strategies, types of testing, scheduling is a “living” document that is constantly changing.

In everyday life the project can have one Master Test Plan and several detailed test.

7. Review and Approval

To increase the value of your test plan conduct its periodic peer review by members of the project team. Below you will find a possible list of participants of the project team:

Lead Tester
Test Manager (Quality Manager)
Head of Development
Project Manager

Their comments and suggestions will help you to make a test plan more complete and qualitative.

Using the above tips you will most probably write a good test plan and won’t have to invent everything by yourself.

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