Easy way to plan your tests

I’m sure such notion as “test plan” is familiar to all testers. But sometimes it seems that there’s not enough information about such essential thing for the testing process. Here I’ll try to summarize the information I managed to get from different Internet sources.

First of all, test plan is the document containing all the information about the whole test process – from the project description, strategy, time schedule, criteria of test’s starting and finishing to the tool set, special equipment and skills. Also risk assessment and possible resolutions should be taken into account.

Good-quality test plan should meet the following minimal set of questions:

1. The project under testing (information about the system, application, equipment)
2. What part of application should be tested (the list of functionalities, testing subsystem)
3. The way you’re going to do testing (test strategy – types of testing and their use for testing the project)
4. Steps of testing execution (preparation and collecting all necessary information, testing, analysis of results)


If you answer to these questions in your test plan, it means that now you have a good draft of the official testing plan documentation.

But there are cases when tester simply has no extra time for preparing the documents carefully or the proper documentation isn’t an essential part of the testing process. Then the best way for quick and easy self-organization is preparing a check-list. Usually check-list is a part of the test plan, so called “features to be tested” part. But it can exist separately and be very helpful for the tester.

Here are some points to organize your quick check-list:

1. Logically separate your application into different independent modules
2. Specify available functionalities for each module
3. Prepare the lists of possible testing for each functionality in the form of the test-cases names without any additional documents or specifications.
4. Check all the points one by one.

This variant is rather convenient and saves time for fulfilling important and urgent projects. I hope this short note will help you organize your testing process in more successful way!