I just started a new assignment as a test manager. This assignment conducts in ‘write a mastertestplan (MTP) as fast as you can, so we can pass the QA check for the project’. I immediately started to think about a colleague of mine who is working on a ‘Quick MTP’. With this quick MTP he wants to create a MTP as fast as possible to service these kinds of assignments.

I’ve been working at this assignment for 2 full days and I’ve written the first concept version on the MTP. OK, I haven’t written the test strategy jet because I haven’t had a change to interview the stakeholders to create an insight in the product risks, but I’ve written at least the assignment, test basis, organisation (the amount of testers is stated as ‘Testers’), products the test team delivers, standard procedures, test control and the project risks I already know of.

I send this concept to my project manager and he commented that it misses how the DSDM principle is incorporated in the testing, or vice versa how the testing is incorporated in the testing. A question I was likely to receive, because it is an agile project based on DSDM. A fair remark, one I should have expected, but I forgot to mention it in the comments about the MTP. For this I also need to interview the other team members on how to incorporate it, I’ll write a post about that one later.

But how did I get a MTP that far along in that short of time? Well here are my thoughts about it and if you have remarks about them, please feel free to comment.

At first I was selected for this assignment because of my experience as a test manager, with Prince2, with DSDM (a little) and geological systems. Only the first two experiences helped me in getting this done, in this short amount of time (they will help me later in the project).

When you look at Prince2 you see that a project has to deliver quite a few documents in the Project Initiation Phase of the project, at least there needs to be a business case; here Prince2 helps testers. This business case is what helped me in writing this much of the MTP. I write my test plans according to the Business Driven Test Management (BDTM) principle of TMap NEXT® (as I work for Sogeti). In BDTM you use your business case as an input for your test assignment, which is what the client wants to have done in the test). This helps me fill in the first part of my MTP. I know who my client is, what the assignment is and what goals the project has. With this information I can produce a lot of parts of the MTP. Of course it’s not all, but I can create it fast.

When you write a test plan you need to know what you need to create your test against; the test basis. In this stage of the project I don’t fully know my test basis. There are some parts of the test basis ready (in concept) but not the amount of information you need for a test project. So I only write down what I know for now. In a later stage of the project I will add this list with the information testers need in total. This includes interviews we have with several people in the project to create a better understanding of the project, risks, requirements and/or wishes. A mastertestplan for me is not a document that is frozen, but it’s alive during the complete project.

How do I know the organisation without the knowledge of the people I need. Well I don’t! Therefore I know what I normally need in a test project (developers, analysts and technical people and testers) so I name that I need them, but not yet how much time. I can also ask what kind of reports and meetings there are and add normal test reports and meetings (like a defect) meeting. Then I have a lot of information already available.

Products that a test team delivers and procedures are normally the same. Testers produce a test plan, test cases and scripts, an advice on the state of the product and at the end a report about the test phase of the project. Sometimes a test infrastructure document is needed, a test ware procedure or a defect management procedure, for the last two I have a standard procedure I can use with most clients (when they don’t have on). These documents are standard to most clients. And they were the same in this case.

When I start a project or even in the intake interview of the assignment I listen for risks. These can be project or product risks. The product risks are to be analysed, but the project risks I can always write down and address with my project manager. That’s why I write them down in a list for myself and later add to the project risk log (if there following Prince2 it should be there). In the test plan I can make a link to the risk log or just add them to the document.

These are steps I took:

• The assignment according to the Business Case of Prince2 documentation;
• The test basis according to known documentation;
• The organisation using standardised filling;
• The procedures and test ware using standardised filling;
• The project risks according to all the information you have and risk log of Prince2.

So that is how I write a MTP in a short time, a ‘lean MTP‘. Next week I’m going to fill in the test strategy by doing a product risks analysis with several persons in and around the project. I’ll post my findings about what I did after that. Oh I just the template from my client for a test plan, but here is on I (co-)created for my employer.

How do you create your master test plan?

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   September 10th, 2010 at 22:43
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