As per the quality assurance practices across various IT companies and testing companies in Ireland it is a good practice to create a test plan before starting off with actual software testing processes. Test planning involves drafting a test plan that would give details about what is the scope of the testing activity and what kind of approach would be carried out to perform testing activities. The document must give the details about the resources that are available for testing and accordingly the testing team will be able to chalk out the testing schedule. The test plan should give all the details regarding the testing activities such as what all features will be tested and what are the roles and responsibilities of each member of the testing team.

Software testing has various aspects related to who will perform testing, how the testing will be performed, what will be tested etc and all this information can be found in the test plan. Test plan allows the testers to put in practical and organized efforts in testing an application or a software. The testing jobs expect the testers to uncover more and more defects only if they are following a systematic approach and this is achieved through a test plan.

In any quality conscious organization that believes in strictly following the quality assurance guidelines, the formal testing activities cannot start without a concrete test plan.  A test plan can be categorized into master test plan and phase test plan. While the former provides details of the entire testing activities at project level the latter focuses on the testing activities of just one phase. A master test plan is necessary to start with the testing process. For refinement of testing activities the test plan can be defined for Unit, integration, system and acceptance level. The project can also have test plan specific to the project requirement.

It is not difficult to write a test plan. A test plan has several sections. The goal of the testing team and an overview of the testing activity must be provided in the introduction section. This would be the first section of the test plan followed by references section where you will list the related documents. Next you must define all the software requirements along with the version in test items section.

 Define the features that you would test and also mention the features that would not be tested. Explain the methodology or approach that would be followed in testing – at what levels the testing would be performed levels and how testing would be performed – manual, automated or combination of both? Define the criteria that would determine whether a test has passed or failed. Also define the suspension and resumption criteria.

Create a test Deliverables section and provide links to other testing related documents. This section would included the link to test plan itself along with links to the test cases, test scripts, test reports and defect logs. Provide details of the test environment, estimates and test schedule. The schedule must specify the test milestones. Include the roles and responsibilities of each testing team member in the staffing and training need section.

A test plan should be accurate, specific and to the point. There no need to include content that is not required. Instead of using big paragraphs try to spilt content into lists and tables so that it is easier to make sense out of the document.

While hiring testers, testing companies and IT companies expect them to know the importance of a test plan. Whether project is big or small, test plan is essential in order to organize testing jobs.