Carnegie Quality » Test Templates

Checkout Test Plan Template Posted

Brad Kuhn — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 21:46:39 +0000

I’ve posted a checkout test plan template at this link.

Checkout Testing Defined

Checkout testing has a very specific purpose – that is, to verify that a deployment (usually to a Production environment) was successful. Checkout testing is concerned with making sure that the deployed system is complete, stable, and in working order. Checkout testing is not concerned with finding defects within the developed code – hopefully the code went through numerous testing phases (e.g. unit, system, UAT) that identified all of the issues already.

Think about the typical weekend deployment – the technical team does all of the code migration activities, then usually one or two people are responsible for making sure things work. The last thing you want after a long deployment weekend is to get a call at 8:00am Monday morning from a user complaining that the system doesn’t work, right? Making sure that doesn’t happen is the purpose behind checkout testing.

Why Document a Test Plan for Checkout Testing?

If you take a look at my template, you’ll see that it is not a large document – so it shouldn’t take a lot of time to produce the document. Why do it? Two main reasons:

Rather than let your checkout testers just wing it, if you put some time into planning the checkout test you’ll stand a better chance of making sure you don’t miss something.
Having a documented checkout test plan will save you time and effort across deployments. You’ll be able to pull out the previous deployment’s plan when the next release comes. You can also improve the plan by making sure you perform lessons learned checkpoints at the end of your project (e.g. was something missed during checkout testing? If so, document it so it gets into the next version of the plan).

Test Plan Template Posted

Brad Kuhn — Thu, 31 May 2007 19:14:16 +0000

I’ve just posted a new Test Plan Template. Feedback is always appreciated, so feel free to leave a comment.

Test Case Planning and Execution Template Posted

Brad Kuhn — Fri, 18 May 2007 18:39:35 +0000

I’ve just posted a template for test case planning and execution. If you don’t have access to a testing tool, you’ll find this helpful in planning and tracking test cases.

Test Scenario/Script Template Posted

Brad Kuhn — Thu, 16 Feb 2006 18:22:33 +0000

I’ve posted a template for documenting test scenarios/scripts. Drop me a comment/email with any questions or feedback you may have.

Defect Statistics Template Posted

Brad Kuhn — Tue, 13 Dec 2005 17:47:41 +0000

I’ve posted a template for producing test statistics. The template is a follow-up on my previous on 10 Tips for Test Statistics. Drop me a comment and let me know what you think.

Are We There Yet?

Brad Kuhn — Fri, 11 Nov 2005 13:47:27 +0000

Have you ever been in this situation? You’re 6 weeks into a 4 week test cycle. The defect count is not going down, you’ve got over half of your test scenarios left to run, and everyone keeps asking – when is testing going to complete?

Sound familiar? Unfortunately, we’ve all been there before. Of course, the real answer is that you shouldn’t be in test – you’re probably stuck in a code and fix mode, which is very difficult to get out of. Better to do some analysis and find out why test is faltering (break out the Ishikawa diagram or your favorite problem solving technique), and go back to another build cycle. Of course the reality is that project management and the business sponsors don’t want to hear that the project needs to go “backwards”. So you’re stuck in test and need to provide an estimate.

Even if development cannot provide an accurate estimate, the test team probably can. Here’s why – you’re several weeks into a test cycle. If you’ve been doing things properly you have some great test statistics that can answer this question.

Read more for details and a template that can help.