test strategy

The test strategy seems to be the most contentious delivery known to testing. The questions around this document are numerous and include “do we need one for every project?”, “isn’t it just a test plan?”, “do we need a strategy?”.

Well, let’s answer those quickly: “no”, “no” and “yes we do”

To answer the questions in more detail…

1. We don’t need a test strategy for every project. In fact we should aim at having one for the entire organisation. This single document should lay down the approach for the management of test processes for all software projects and should therefore be generic enough to achieve this goal

2. The main differences between a test strategy and a test plan are the life of the document and the scope of the document.

• The life span of the test strategy is much longer than that of the test plan. It describes the way testing management and activities are to be carried out in order to support the long term, strategic business goals of the organisation. It should be reviewed if there is a change to the organisation’s business strategy.
• The scope of the test strategy is much broader than that of the test plan. It covers every aspect of testing associated with the organisation. The test team structures, usage of specific tools, processes. It should be the main point of reference for every test project undertaken by the organisation.

3. A strategy is vital for large organisations with many teams, delivering many software projects. It encourages consistency, cohesion, and enables high levels of quality, efficiency and effectiveness can be reflected across the organisation and repeated time after time. Smaller organisations as well as larger organisations benefit from using a test strategy as since it is a referenced, generic document for all testing, it cuts down the amount of effort required for producing test plans for each project. A test plan can be a quarter of the size if it referenced relevant sections of the test strategy instead of repeating the full details found in every project’s test plan time and time again.