Step-by-Step Guide to Efficient Software Test Management

Test management
Prof. Durga Prasad Mohapatra
Professor
Dept. of CSE, NIT Rourkela

Test Management
 Test management is concerned with both test resource
and test environment management.
 It is the role of test management to ensure that new or
modified service products meet the business
requirements for which they have been developed or
enhanced.

Key elements of test management
1. Test organization.
2. Test planning.
3. Detailed test design and test specifications.
4. Test monitoring and assessment.
5. Product quality assurance.

Test organization
 It is the process of setting up and managing a suitable
test organizational structure and defining explicit roles.
 The project framework under which the testing
activities will be carried out is reviewed, high-level test
phase plans are prepared, and resource schedules are
considered.
 Test organization also involves the determination of
configuration standards and defining the test
environment.

Test planning
 The requirements definition and design
specifications facilitate the identification of
major test items and these may necessitate
updating the test strategy.
 A detailed test plan and schedule is prepared
with key test responsibilities being indicated.

Detailed test design and test
specifications
 A detailed design is the process of designing a
meaningful and useful structure for the tests as
a whole.
 It specifies the details of the test approach for a
software functionality or feature and identifying
the associated test cases.

Test monitoring and assessment
 It is the ongoing monitoring and assessment to
check the integrity of development and
construction.
 The status of configuration items should be
reviewed against the phase plans and the test
progress reports prepared, to ensure the
verification and validation activities are correct.

Product quality assurance
 The decision to negotiate the acceptance testing
program and the release and commissioning of
the service product is subject to the 'product
assurance' role being satisfied with the outcome
of the verification and validation activities.
 Product assurance may oversee some of the
test activity and may participate in process
reviews.

Test Organization I
 Since testing is viewed as a process, it must have
an organization such that a testing group works
for better testing and high quality software.
Test Organization I

The testing group activities:
 Maintenance and application of test policies
 Development and application of testing standards
 Participation in requirement, design and code reviews
 Test planning
 Test execution
 Test measurement
 Test monitoring
 Defect tracking
 Acquisition of testing tools
 Test reporting

Test Organization II
 The staff members of such a testing group are called test
specialists or test engineers or simply testers.
 A tester is not a developer or an analyst.
 He does not debug the code or repair.
 He is responsible for ensuring that testing is effective and
quality issues are being addressed.
 The skills a tester should possess are
 Personal and Managerial Skills
 Technical Skills

Personal and Managerial Skills
 Testers must be able to contribute in policy-making and
planning the testing activities.
 must be able to work in a team.
 must be able to organize & monitor information, tasks, and
people.
 must be able to interact with other engineering
professionals, software quality assurance staff, and clients.
 should be capable of training & mentoring new testers.
 should be creative, imaginative, and experiment-oriented.
 must have written and oral communication skills.

Technical Skills I
 Testers must be technically sound, capable of
understanding software engineering principles
and practices.
 must be good in programming skills.
 must have an understanding of testing basics,
principles, and practices.
 must have a good understanding and practice of
testing strategies and methods to develop test
cases.

Technical Skills II
 must have the ability to plan, design, and execute
test cases with the goal of logic coverage.
 must have technical knowledge of networks,
databases, operating systems, etc. needed to
work in a project environment.
 must have the knowledge of configuration mgt.
 must have the knowledge of test-ware and the
role of each document in the testing process.
 must have knowledge about quality issues &
standards.

Structure of Testing Group
 Testing is an important part of any software project.
 One or two testers are not sufficient to perform testing,
especially if the project is too complex and large.
 Therefore, many testers are required at various levels.
 Figure 1 shows different types of testers in a hierarchy.

Structure of Testing Group contd…..
Figure 1: Testing Group Hierarchy

Responsibilities of Test Manager
• He is the key person in testing group who will
interact with project management, quality assurance,
and marketing staff.
• Takes responsibility for making test strategies with
detailed master planning and schedule.
• Interacts with customers regarding quality issues.
• Acquires all the testing resources including tools.
• Monitors progress of testing & controls the events.
• Participates in all static verification meetings.
• Hires and evaluates the test team members.

Responsibilities of Test Leader
• Planning testing tasks given by the test manager.
• Assigning testing tasks to test engineers who are
working under him.
• Supervising test engineers. (prime responsibility)
• Acquires all the testing resources including tools.
• Helping the test engineers in test case design,
execution, and reporting.
• Providing tool training, if required.
• Interacting with customers.

Responsibilities of Test Engineers
 Designing test cases.
 Developing test harness.
 Set-up test laboratories and environment.
 Maintain the test and defect repositories.

Junior Test Engineers
 Junior test engineers are newly hired testers.
 They usually are trained about the test strategy,
test process, and testing tools.
 They participate in test design and execution with
experienced test engineers.

Test Planning
 According to the test process as discussed in STLC, testing also
needs planning as is needed in SDLC. Since software projects
become uncontrolled if not planned properly, the testing process is
also not effective if not planned earlier.
 Moreover, if testing is not effective in a software project, it also
affects the final software product.Therefore, for a quality software,
testing activities must be planned as soon as the project planning
starts.
 A test plan is defined as a document that describes the scope,
approach, resources, and schedule of intended testing activities.

Test Planning cont…..
 Test plan is driven with the business goals of the product. In order
to meet a set of goals, the test plan identifies the followings:
1) Test items
2) Features to be tested
3) Testing tasks
4) Tools selection
5) Time and effort estimate
6) Who will do each task
7) Any risks
8) Milestones

 Test Plan Identifier
 Introduction
 Test-Item to be tested
 Features to be tested
 Features not to be tested
 Approach
 Item Pass/Fail Criteria
 Suspension criteria and resumption requirements
 Test deliverables
 Testing tasks
 Environmental needs
 Responsibilities
 Staffing and training needs
 Scheduling
 Risks and contingencies
 Testing costs
 Approvals
Test Plan Components

Detailed Test Design And Test Specifications
 The ultimate goal of test management is to get the test cases
executed.
 Till now, test planning has not provided the test cases to be executed.
 Detailed test designing for each validation activity maps the
requirements or features to the actual test cases to be executed.
 One way to map the features to their test cases is to analyse the
following:
1. Requirement traceability
2. Design traceability
3. Code traceability

Test Design Specification
A test design specification should have the following components according to IEEE
recommendation:
 Identifier A unique identifier is assigned to each test design
specification with a reference to its associated test plan.
 Features to be tested The features or requirements to be tested
are listed with reference to the items mentioned in SRS/SDD.
 Approach refinements In the test plan, an approach to overall
testing was discussed. Here, further details are added to the
approach.
 For example, special testing techniques to be used for generating
test cases are explained.

 Test case identification The test cases to be executed for
a particular feature/ function are identified here, as shown in
Table 1.
 Moreover, test procedures are also identified.
Table 1. Traceability matrix

 The test cases contain input/output information
and the test procedures contain the necessary
steps to execute the tests.
 Each test design specification is associated with
test cases and test procedures.
 A test case may be associated with more than
one test design specifications.

 Feature pass/fail criteria The criteria for
determining whether the test for a feature has
passed or failed, is described.

Test Case Specifications
 Since the test design specifications have recognized the
test cases to be executed, there is a need to define the
test cases with complete specifications.
 The test case specification document provides the actual
values for input with expected outputs.
 One test case can be used for many design specifications
and may be re-used in other situations.
 A test case specification should have the following
components according to IEEE recommendation:

 Test case specification identifier A unique
identifier is assigned to each test case specification
with a reference to its associated test plan.
 Purpose The purpose of designing and executing
the test case should be mentioned here.
 It refers to the functionality you want to check
with this test case.

 Test items needed List the references to related
documents that describe the items and features,
e.g. SRS, SDD, and user manual.
 Special environmental needs In this component,
any special requirement in the form of hardware
or software is recognized.
 Any requirement of tool may also be specified.

 Special procedural requirements Describe any
special condition or constraint to run the test case,
if any.
 Inter-case dependencies There may be a situation
that some test cases are dependent on each other.
 Therefore, previous test cases which should be run
prior to the current test case must be specified.

 Input specifications This component specifies the actual
inputs to be given while executing a test case.
 The important thing while specifying the input values is
- not to generalize the values, rather specific values
should be provided.
 For example, if the input is in angle, then the angle should
not be specified as a range between 0 and 360, but a
specific value like 233 should be specified.
 If there is any relationship between two or more input
values, it should also be specified.

 Test procedure The step-wise procedure for executing the
test case is described here.
 Output specifications Whether a test case is successful
or not is decided after comparing the output specifications
with the actual outputs achieved.
 Therefore, the output should be mentioned complete in all
respects.
 As in the case of input specifications, output specifications
should also be provided in specific values.

Example
S. No. Functionality
Function ID in
SRS
Test cases
1 Login the system F3.4 T1
2 View reservation status F3.5 T2
3 View train schedule F3.6 T3
4 Reserve seat F3.7 T4
5 Cancel seat F3.8 T5
6 Exit the system F3.9 T6
There is a system for railway reservation system. There are many
functionalities in the system, as given below:

Test specification to
‘view reservation status’

Test Procedure Specifications
 A test procedure is a sequence of steps required
to carry out a test case or a specific task.
 This can be a separate document or merged with
a test case specification.

Test Result Specifications
 Test Log
 Test log is a record of the testing events that take
place during the test.
 Test log is helpful for bug repair or regression
testing.
 The developer gets valuable clues from this test
log, as it provides snapshots of failures.

Format for preparing a test log according to IEEE:
• Test log identifier
• Description - Mention the items to be tested, their
version number, and the environment in which
testing is being performed.

 Activity & event entries - Mention the followings:
(i) Date
(ii) Author of the test
(iii) Test case ID
(iv) Name the personnel involved in testing
(v) For each execution, record the results and mention pass/fail
status
(vi) Report any anomalous unexpected event, before or after the
execution

Test Incident Report
 This is a form of bug report.
 It is the report about any unexpected event during
 testing which needs further investigation to resolve the
bug.
 Therefore, this report completely describes the
execution of the event.
 It not only reports the problem that has occurred but
also compares the expected output with the actual
results.

 Components of a test incident report
 Test incident report identifier
 Summary - Identify the test items involved, test
cases/procedures, &the test log associated with this test.

 Incident description - It describes the followings:
(i) Date and time
(ii) Testing personnel names
(iii) Environment
(iv) Testing inputs
(v) Expected outputs
(vi) Actual outputs
(vii) Anomalies detected during the test
(viii) Attempts to repeat the same test

 Impact - The originator of this report will assign a
severity value/rank to this incident so that the
developer may know the impact of this problem
and debug the critical problem first.

Sample test incident report
for Example

Test Summary Report
 It is basically an evaluation report prepared when the
testing is over.
 It is the summary of all the tests executed for a specific
test design specification.
 It can provide the measurement of how much testing
efforts have been applied for the test.
 It also becomes a historical database for future projects, as
it provides information about the particular type of bugs
observed.

 A test summary report contains the following
components:
1. Test summary report identifier
2. Description Identify the test items being reported in this report
with the test case/procedure ID.
3. Variances Mention any deviation from the test plans, test
procedures, if any.

 Comprehensive statement The originator of
this report compares the comprehensiveness of
the testing efforts made with the test plans.
 It describes what has been tested according to the
plan and what has not been covered.

 Summary of results All the results are
mentioned here with the resolved incidents and
their solutions.
 Unresolved incidents are also reported.
 Evaluation Mention the status of the test results.
If the status is fail, then mention its impact and
severity level.

 Summary of activities All testing execution
activities and events are mentioned with resource
consumption, actual task durations, etc.
 Approvals List the names of the persons who
approve this document with their signatures and
dates.

Test summary report
for Example

Summary
 Discussed the key elements of test management.
 Presented the structure of testing group.
 Explained the details of test planning.
 Discussed detailed test design and test specifications.
 Presented various testing reports such as
◦ Test log
◦ Test incidence report
◦ Test summary report 55

References
1. Naresh Chauhan, Software Testing: Principles and
Practices, (Chapter – 9), Second Edition, Oxford
University Press, 2016.

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