2. PROJECT TEAM
Quality Manager Test Manager
SW Project Manager
Project Manager
3. TEST MANAGEMENT - DEFINITIONS
important part of software quality is the process of testing and
validating the software
Test management is the practice of organizing and controlling
the process and artifacts required for the testing effort.
The general goal of test management is to allow teams to plan,
develop, execute, and assess all testing activities within the
overall software development effort.
This includes coordinating efforts of all those involved in the
testing effort, tracking dependencies and relationships among
test assets and, most importantly, defining, measuring, and
tracking quality goals.
4. TEST MANAGEMENT - PHASES
Test artifacts and resource organization
Test planning is the overall set of tasks that address the questions
of why, what, where, and when to test.
Test authoring is a process of capturing the specific steps required
to complete a given test.
Test execution consists of running the tests by assembling
sequences of test scripts into a suite of tests.
Test reporting is how the various results of the testing effort are
analyzed and communicated. This is used to determine the current
status of project testing, as well as the overall level of quality of the
application or system. 100%
90%
act. # of spec. TCs
Automatisation level
atc. autom. level [%]
3500
3000
planned autom. level [%] 80%
% of automated TCs
80%
# of specified TCs
70% 70%0%
7 69%
68% 68% 69% 2500
70% 64%
6 61%
60%0%
60% 57% 56% 58%
57%
54%4% 5 3%
5 53% 2000
51%
48%48%8%
47% 4
50% 43% 44%
42% 42%
39% 1500
40% 36% 3 5% 35% 36%6% 34%
36% 35% 3 6% 3 36%
35%
31%
28%
30% 1000
20%
500
10%
0% 0
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LS 7 LS 7.1 LS 8 LS 9
Calender weeks / Delivery steps
6. TEST MANAGEMENT - CHALLENGES
Why should I test? Not enough time to test
What should I test? Not enough resources to test
Where do I test? Testing teams are not always in
When do I test? one place
How do I conduct the tests?
Difficulties with requirements
Keeping in synch with
development
Reporting the right information
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/rational/library/06/1107_davis/
7. TEST MANAGEMENT – PRIORITIES
DEFINITIONS
Example Priority Definitions
P1 – Failure on this test is likely to result in a loss or corruption of data. This test
must be run as soon as practicable and must also be run on the final build.
P2 – Failure on this test is likely to results in unacceptable loss of functionality.
This test must be run as soon as practicable. The test should also be run for the
final time once development in this area of functionality has stabilized.
P3 – Failure on this test is likely to result in loss of functionality but there may
well be workarounds available. This test should be run only once development in
this area of functionality has stabilized.
P4 – Failure on this test is likely to result in loss of functionality that is not
critical to a user. This test should be run once and probably need not be run again.
P5 – Failure on this test is likely to indicate a trivial problem with the
functionality. If time permits it would be nice to run these tests but they need not
be completed if the time scales don’t allow (i.e. if this test was carried out and
failed it would not stop the product shipping)
9. TEST MANAGEMENT – SPECIFIC RULES
Test Technique type Example
Systematic Boundary value (~85%)
Lessons Learned Checklist (~5%)
Intuitive Error guessing (~5%)
Supporting Stress test, Robustness test (~5%)
Special critical timing analysis (only if applicable)
10. ROLE OF TEST MANAGER
What the test manager is responsible for:
◦ Defining and implementing the role testing plays within the
organization.
◦ Defining the scope of testing within the context of each
release/delivery.
◦ Deploying and managing the appropriate testing framework to meet
the testing mandate.
◦ Implementing and evolving appropriate measurements and metrics.
To be applied against the product under test.
To be applied against the testing team.
◦ Planning, deploying and managing the testing effort for any given
engagement/release.
◦ Managing and growing testing assets required for meeting the
testing mandate:
Team members
Testing tools
Testing processes
◦ Retaining skilled testing personnel.
11. TEST MANAGEMENT
RECOMMENDATIONS
Start test management activities early
Test iteratively
Reuse test artifacts
Utilize requirements-based testing
Validating that something does what it is supposed to do
Trying to find out what can cause something to break
Defining and enforcing a flexible testing process
Coordinate and integrate with the rest of development
Communicate status
Focus on goals and results
12. TEST MANAGEMENT - TESTING
METRICS
Number of faults detected per functionality ordered by severity before
delivery
Number of test cases per functionality
Number of test steps per test case
Number of test cases per requirement
Number of faults detected by test cases before delivery
Effort for execution of test cases
Requirement coverage by test cases