Managing the Test Activities practice questions

Test planning guides the testers' thinking and makes them confront future challenges.

Besides producing a document, the planning activity forces testers to think about the risks, schedules, people, tools, costs and effort the project will face. Exit criteria cannot ensure that defects are found, test cases come later in design and implementation, and the plan works within the organization's test strategy rather than replacing it.

1. Focus on what the activity of planning gives, not the document.
2. Reject options that describe later test activities such as design or implementation.
3. Reject options that promise outcomes testing cannot ensure or that override the test strategy.

Exam tip: Planning is thinking ahead: it surfaces risks, schedule, people, tool, cost and effort challenges early.

Typical test plan content: context of testing, assumptions and constraints, stakeholders, communication, risk register, test approach, budget and schedule.

A test plan sets out the context, stakeholders, communication, risk register, test approach, budget and schedule. Individual test cases with their input values and expected results are produced later, during test design, and are separate testware.

1. Recall the typical sections of a test plan.
2. Check each option against those sections.
3. Identify the item that belongs to test design work products.

Exam tip: The test plan says how testing will be done; test cases say exactly what each test does.

In a test plan, the test approach describes how testing will be performed.

Test levels, test types, test techniques, test deliverables, entry and exit criteria, independence of testing, metrics to collect, test data and test environment requirements, and deviations from the organizational test policy and strategy are all parts of the test approach. Scope and objectives sit in the context of testing, and risks in the risk register.

1. List what the described section contains.
2. Recall which test plan section holds levels, techniques, metrics and environments.
3. Rule out sections that cover scope, communication or risks.

Exam tip: Test approach = levels, types, techniques, criteria, independence, metrics, data and environments.

Release planning looks ahead to the release and the product backlog; iteration planning looks ahead to one iteration and its backlog.

Release planning concerns the whole release and defines and re-defines the product backlog. There, testers write testable stories and acceptance criteria, take part in project and quality risk analyses, estimate test effort for user stories, determine the test approach and plan testing for the release. Breaking stories into testing tasks, checking testability and detailed story risk analysis concern a single iteration.

1. Note the time horizon: the release or the next iteration.
2. Match each option to the planning level it serves.
3. Choose the activity that covers the whole release.

Exam tip: Release planning: test approach and plan for the release. Iteration planning: tasks, testability and detailed risks per story.

Testers in iteration planning analyse, break down and estimate the work for the selected user stories.

Iteration planning is concerned with the iteration backlog. Testers take part in detailed risk analysis of the stories, determine their testability, break them into tasks (particularly testing tasks), estimate test effort for all testing tasks, and identify and refine functional and non-functional aspects of the test object.

1. Recall that iteration planning concerns one iteration's backlog.
2. Reject release-level and organization-level activities.
3. Reject activities that happen after the iteration's testing ends.

Exam tip: In iteration planning, testers break stories into testing tasks and estimate them.

Entry criteria are the preconditions for starting an activity: resources, testware and the initial quality of the test object.

Typical entry criteria are availability of resources (people, tools, environments, test data, budget, time), availability of testware (test basis, testable requirements, user stories, test cases) and an initial quality level of the test object, such as all smoke tests passing. Coverage achieved, unresolved defects and automated regression tests describe what must be achieved to finish, so they are exit criteria.

1. Ask whether each condition must hold before the activity starts or at its end.
2. Match resources, testware and initial quality to entry criteria.
3. Match coverage, defect counts and completion conditions to exit criteria.

Exam tip: Entry = ready to start (resources, testware, smoke tests); exit = done (coverage, defects, completion).