Effective Test Management
(Basic)(CSTP #3 & 4)
Elfriede Dustin
This tutorial counts as one day of training towards the Certified Software Test Professional requirements.

This tutorial is based on the book “Effective Software Testing,” authored by the presenter (published by Addison Wesley, Winter 2002)

Concepts

Test professionals are working under continuous pressure to complete testing tasks with minimal time-frames, little resources, and inadequate budgets. However, the responsibility of the testing team cannot be understated, since the delivery of troublesome or error-prone systems can result in disgruntled customers, loss of revenue, and loss of market share. Customers are seeking systems that serve them in a reliable fashion, that are secure and usable, and that provide quick and easy service.

Given that testing resources are scarce, it is important that the testing program is implemented and managed as effectively and efficiently as possible. Often overlooked are the many necessary aspects that make up a successful test program, such as requirements verification, test team responsibilities and roles, automated tools, and nonfunctional testing.

The tutorial presents these key concepts and practices that can be used by most organizations to implement a successful and efficient testing program. Effective Test Management is implemented along the software development life-cycle. The tutorial is therefore broken down into the following phases:

• Requirement considerations for the testing effort. It is important in the requirements phase for all stakeholders, including the testing team, to be involved and informed of all requirements and changes. In addition, basing test cases on requirements is an important concept for any large project
• Test-planning activities, including the strategy for creating test cases, the goal of the testing effort, and considerations related to data, environments, and the software itself
• Testing team make-up. A successful testing team will have a mixture of technical and domain knowledge, as well as a structured and concise division of roles and responsibilities
• Effective development of test procedures, including considerations for the creation and documentation of tests, as well as testing techniques. This includes a discussion on the use of developer unit testing in the overall testing strategy. Unit testing in the implementation phase can result in significant gains in software quality
• Automated testing tool issues, including the proper types of tools to use on a project, the build vs. buy decision, and concerns for deciding on the right tool for the organization. This includes a discussion on selected best practices for automated testing. The proper use of capture/playback, test harnesses, and regression tests are discussed
• Non-functional test considerations for a software application. Items discussed include performance, security, usability, compatibility, and concurrency testing
• A strategy for managing the execution of tests, including the appropriate way to track test procedures, defects, and gather metrics

Elfriede Dustin is a QA Director for a company in Washington, DC. Elfriede Dustin is the lead author of Automated Software Testing (Addison-Wesley, 1999), and Quality Web Systems (Addison-Wesley, 2001). An acknowledged expert in software engineering and testing practices, she has assisted numerous companies in the definition and implementation of QA and Testing processes.