Test Plan - The Real Plan

Many of us experienced that Test Plan document is loosing its significance. Stakeholder review it and the document is just selfed as we progress in Test execution, bug fixing etc. Then why we write Plan document.

Diffrent people have diffrent opinions on maintaining Test plan document to create more value. I have collected few points here, these are points taken from experienced people in Dev, Test and PM discipline.

1. Test Document should be Crisp and To the point, not a boring book of change of Texts.
2. Make your stakeholders believe how religiously you follow and update Test plan document.
3. Highlight Risk and Mitigation plan clearly and update it regularly as you progress during testing cycle.
4. Test strategy should be clearly mentioned and should be tracked.
5. Provide links of test plan in other project documents, so that stakeholders will not forget it.
6. For any change ask stakeholders to approve modified test plan.
7. Present Test plan during diffrent project discussion.

These are some of important points i hear when i discussed about keeping test plan document alive.

Your thoughts highly appreciated.

Test Cases using Diagram

When Test team send Test cases to stakeholders for review purpose, usually there is very slow response.
Many stakeholders like Dev, Architect etc. dont even bother to go through test cases to provide review comments. So, what is missing here ? while a tester(s) puts lots of effort in writing test cases, why they were not given good eye during review. Reasons can be of diffrent types
1. Stakeholders feels its not that important.
2. They think its testers responsibility to test anyway.
3. They dont want to take the pain to do the review.
4. They think tester might have covered all steps.

So how to mitigate these risks.

Prepare test cases or test scenario in form of a story and represent them in a diagram (Visio or MSPaint or MS Sketchflow). Test design flow diagram will save lots of time for Testers and stakeholder's.

Represent your test cases in form of picture and send for review. You will see the diffrence :)

API Testing and a tester's readiness

API Testers are in high demand now days. API tester should not test black box usually, they dont test on front end looks and feel perspective. API tester expected to do white box testing. API Tester should work closely with developers, by that they can learn more. Tester should de Understandivelop following skills for API testing
1. Design Understanding
2. Scenario focussed Design
3. Integration level testing
4. Code Review skills
5. And yes very good Team Working Skills (With Developers)

Lets Test our Code First

We write lots of automation code, use many tools available in market, but have we ever thought of doing code review for automation code we write, doing inspection, reviewing coding standards etc.
These are must, as our automation code going to be used for quality check, first of all our code should be optimised otherwise developers or other stakeholders wont give much importance to automation code that we write, yes there are reason behind it, unmanaged code wont help in finding defects (more) than manual testing. So fasten your seat belt and do Code Review, Maintain coding standard, do code coverage before sending your code (Automation) to do product testing. Thoughts ?

Design Feedback by Test Engineer

Now days companies are stressing more on design aspect. If design goes wrong or if anything got missed during design phase, that will be a big loss to company and none other than tester will bleed. Test engineer in recent times should concentrate more on design aspect of software. Need to develop skill on design pattern or design understanding, providing feedback on design to developers and artitects. Initially tester may not match with their skills but finding flaw in design a great win than finding number of defects during system functional testing phase. Share your thoughts :)

Writing conventional Test cases wont pay you much

During my 11 years of career i have met number of good to great testers. I met many testers in diffrent locations in india, UK and europe. One thing though shocking is quality of test cases. Though test engineer may be a great thinking tester but i saw lack of depth in test cases design. Its not that i write worlds best test cases but IMHO testing has changed a lot post 2010 and now companies and organizations worldwide expects testers to write more scenario (read user scenario) driven test cases.
This does not mean test cases should not concentrate on functionality but thinking test cases are crucial now days. Test cases should try to get hidden defects, that should be the moto while writing test cases.

Why coding is necessary now days for a tester

When a Tester talks in a meeting, you can observe peoples behavious how seriously they are taking your comments unless its not about bugs. In my opinion a testers should show below traits to earn respect like never before.

1. Code, Code and More code. If you can code, understand code and able to debug code then you are the King. Developer, PM will listen to you.
2. Understand business in and out (maximum you can), then others will listen to you.
3. Talk less but when you talk, talk design issue or a bug which can create havoc to client and you will be the Boss.

In changing economy job market IMO testers has to develop above skills throughly to gain more respect and everybody will notice.