A software project test plan is a document that describes
the objectives, scope, approach, and focus of a software
testing effort. The process of preparing a test plan
is a useful way to think through the efforts needed to
validate the acceptability of a software product. The
completed document will help people outside the test
group understand the 'why' and 'how' of product validation.
It should be thorough enough to be useful but not so
thorough that no one outside the test group will read it.
The following are some of the items that might be
included in a test plan, depending on the particular project:
- Title
- Identification of software including version/release numbers
- Revision history of document including authors, dates, approvals
- Table of Contents
- Purpose of document, intended audience
- Objective of testing effort
- Software product overview
- Relevant related document list, such as requirements, design
documents, other test plans, etc.
- Relevant standards or legal requirements
- Traceability requirements
- Relevant naming conventions and identifier conventions
- Overall software project organization and
personnel/contact-info/responsibilties
- Test organization and personnel/contact-info/responsibilities
- Assumptions and dependencies
- Project risk analysis
- Testing priorities and focus
- Scope and limitations of testing
- Test outline - a decomposition of the test approach by test type,
feature, functionality, process, system, module, etc.
as applicable
- Outline of data input equivalence classes, boundary value
analysis, error classes
- Test environment - hardware, operating systems,
other required software, data configurations, interfaces
to other systems
- Test environment validity analysis - differences between the
test and production systems and their impact on test validity.
- Test environment setup and configuration issues
- Software migration processes
- Software CM processes
- Test data setup requirements
- Database setup requirements
- Outline of system-logging/error-logging/other capabilities,
and tools such as screen capture software, that will be used
to help describe and report bugs
- Discussion of any specialized software or hardware tools
that will be used by testers to help track the cause or
source of bugs
- Test automation - justification and overview
- Test tools to be used, including versions, patches, etc.
- Test script/test code maintenance processes and version control
- Problem tracking and resolution - tools and processes
- Project test metrics to be used
- Reporting requirements and testing deliverables
- Software entrance and exit criteria
- Initial sanity testing period and criteria
- Test suspension and restart criteria
- Personnel allocation
- Personnel pre-training needs
- Test site/location
- Outside test organizations to be utilized and their
purpose, responsibilties, deliverables, contact persons,
and coordination issues
- Relevant proprietary, classified, security, and licensing issues.
- Open issues
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