Carnegie Quality

Hot off the presses – a risk register template that you can get over here.

I’ve just posted a template for a risk management plan – you can grab it over here.

Why I am posting a risk management plan on a site about testing? Well, for a couple of reasons. First, I’m trying not to limit information on my blog to testing only – I’d like to incorporate information on quality assurance, which I feel is much broader than just testing. Second, while I agree that risk management is ultimately the project manager’s responsibility, I believe that quality assurance/testers have unique insight into risk, and therefore should play a key role within risk management. And finally, I believe that many project managers don’t do risk management (or don’t do it well), and if you find yourself in this situation, it’s better to step up and make sure that risk management is done rather than just shrugging your shoulders and saying “it’s not my job”.

I stumbled across an old article that I hadn’t seen before from QualityProgramming.org called “Bug Analysis: Laying the Ground for Bug Prevention”. It’s a very good article on how testing can enable continuous improvement.

A couple of thoughts after I read this article:

• In my experience, it’s the role of the developer to assess the reason for the defect, not the tester. I would never go through someone’s code – I wouldn’t know what to look for! Though I understand that others are much more technical in nature and enjoy this.
• While the activities that are described in the article are spot on, I think there is too much emphasis placed on the Quality Control (testing) team. The real owner of this function is Quality Assurance. QA is responsible for making sure there are lessons learned – doesn’t mean they will do all the work, but they need to be driving this.
• I’ve had mixed experiences doing these things myself. Many times I’ve done defect analysis and root cause analysis; documented my findings with charts and graphs; and presented them to project management/development to discover not much enthusiasm. Maybe it’s me, but I hope not! What have others experienced?

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

I recently received a question on a previous post of mine about what test documentation should be pulled together for management when you get assigned to manage a test project. I’ve been asked this before, so I thought the answer warranted a post.

Not all of us have managed a test phase or team before. I would summarize preparing and running a test project in five groups of activities:

1. Define the Test Strategy
2. Document the Test Plan
3. Prepare the Test Scripts
4. Execute the Test Plan
5. Deliver Metrics and Lessons Learned

Test Strategy

You should start with the test strategy. The strategy document defines:

• Any applicable quality assurance guidelines to be followed
• Overall approach to testing (e.g. use of automated test tools, need for regression testing, etc…)
• Overall responsibilities for testing
• The test phases that will be executed and various information about each phase (e.g. description, timing, roles and responsibilities, etc…)

Some people don’t see the need for an overall test strategy and write test plans instead, but I prefer a summary level document like this one. One advantage to this approach is that you can develop your test strategy fairly early in the project – but test plans generally require that you’re further along in the project life cycle.

The Test Plan

Don’t make the mistake of leaping immediately into the definition of test scripts after you’ve defined your test strategy – you need to flesh out a test plan for each test phase of the project. This includes unit testing (Development should develop this plan). I’ll be publishing a test plan template shortly, so I’ll provide more information in that post, but here’s the type of information the test plan should have (at a minimum):

• Scope (including what won’t be tested)
• Quality risks
• Schedule (including planned test iterations)
• Entry, exit, and stopping criteria
• Test configuration(s)/environment(s)
• Roles and responsibilities
• Defect reporting (including references to documentation on how to use the defect tracking tool)
• Release management
• Test case status and metrics reporting

Test Scripts

Here’s a couple of posts that will help in planning and writing test scripts – the first one is on test case planning and execution, and the second one describes a test script template.

Test Execution

If you’ve put together a good test plan and developed a thorough set of test scripts, test execution is a snap! Well, not really – but a large amount of your total test effort should be spent in preparing for test execution. That way you won’t be swamped when all of the unforeseen emergencies land (and they will).

Test Metrics and Lessons Learned

You should regularly deliver test metrics while you execute each test phase. I’ve written a previous post on test statistics, and I’d suggest you start there for some ideas. Also, at the end of testing don’t forget to put together a lessons learned, which should include what went well/could be improved for the next time. You don’t want to constantly hit the same difficulties over and over, do you?