Test Planning - Software Testing: Testing Across the Entire Software Development Life Cycle - page 79

Chapter 5

Te st Pla n n i ng

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

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to connect the test strategy to test plan development
to connect a test plan to test writing and execution
to synchronize test documentation writing with development phases

5.1 INTRODUCTION

The most effective and manageable way to develop and deliver your testing is to
document the effort into two distinct parts. The fi rst part contains the overall test
plan description. The second part contains the detailed test execution instructions.

5.2 THE TEST PLAN

You will encounter different names in the literature for the fi rst part: Master test
plan, Comprehensive test plan, and High-level test plan, to name a few examples. For
the purpose of discussion in this textbook, the overall test plan document will simply
be called the Test Plan. The scope of the test plan is the whole testing strategy chess
board: what application (s) will be tested and why, which support layers will be tested
and why, and how much (if not all) of the development life cycle will require testing.
A typical test plan should include the following:

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application(s)/system(s) to be tested
testing objectives and their rationale (risk and requirements)
scope and limitations of the test plan
sources of business expertise for test planning and execution
source of development expertise for test planning and execution
sources of test data