What is Test Strategy? Types of strategies with examples
In the further sections of this analytical test strategy tutorial, we will explore the risk-based testing approach and how it can implement Agile principles in your testing process. The specifics of the product governed by stakeholders’ needs make a cornerstone for choosing the right regression testing strategy. A good strategy for regression testing reduces testing time and effort and enhances the product quality, making it fully correspond to the customer’s needs. Security testing detects an app’s vulnerabilities for outside hackers and examines code quality from the security perspective. However, for web applications requiring high security level (medical applications, banking apps, etc.), security testing also features user authorization.
The testing strategy document includes the roles and responsibilities of the testing team resources. Therefore, it needs to be aligned with the test policy of the organization. A test strategy answers how the software testing team will test the software application. This implies describing the process the team will implement when the development team provides the software application for testing. And we also learn about features of test strategy, components of test strategy, types of test strategies, and different testing activities, which include the test strategy document.
Test Strategy vs Test Plan
For instance, if a visually impaired user is using software, the testing team should give more emphasis to accessibility. A heuristic testing approach comes under the category of exploratory testing and highly depends on the intuition, experiences, and knowledge of testers. In other words, we can also refer to heuristic techniques as rules of thumb that experienced testers use to uncover hard-to-identify defects. Proactive testing also places a huge emphasis on assessing and managing risks and thoroughly testing critical areas and functionalities prone to defects. A proactive testing approach also involves developing test cases before implementing the actual code and facilitating continuous collaboration in feedback.
However, today teams often start regression test automation at the early stages. It works well for Agile development where teams should deploy a product at least weekly and have no time for warming-up manual regression testing. The created infrastructure can be reused for future products, accelerating test automation. The testing team prioritizes efforts by taking the complexity and criticality of the functionality under test. The process utilizes automation and risk-based prioritization to execute tests effectively in a way that ensures stability and minimizes the effect of regressions on a software product. A reactive testing approach involves test design that comes after developing the software.
Regression Testing Strategies: an Overview
A test plan addresses test coverage, features that should and shouldn’t be checked, as well as estimations, scheduling, and resource management. In a nutshell, the test plan is your goal-oriented vision, and the test strategy is your strategy for getting there. Without testing documentation, measuring QA quality remains challenging even for seasoned professionals. The need for more documentation is even more apparent when onboarding new QA engineers and scaling your product. With documentation, the value and purpose of quality assurance remain clear. Tatiana Bessonova is Lead Functional Test Engineer with 14 years of experience in waterfall and agile projects.
- Test charters are developed based on the existing features and functionalities.
- Considering the neverending list of testing activities, it’s always a good idea to create a comprehensive and detailed plan, also known as carrying out a test plan.
- After completing the risk analysis, the team performs tasks such as test design, test implementation, and test execution.
- The analytical tests approach has in common the use of some formal and informal analytical techniques.
- Instead of blindly following the templates, consider what will work best for your product.
- A good testing strategy requires an experienced QA lead and good communication with other stakeholders to tailor the best practices to your project.
- It’s important to understand the difference between these two types of testing.
The QA team proposes the need for risk analysis and becomes a part of this analysis for the entire program. The team leverages this predefined order to distribute the effort and order test cases. When the requirements do not have a pre-defined order, the team combines the requirements-based analytical test strategy with the risk-based analytical test strategy to allocate the correct effort. In SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle), the test strategy document plays an important role.
What is a testing strategy?
Another example is metamorphic testing of machine learning, which you could argue is reactive as one test depends on the next. One of the standout features of testRigor lies in its AI algorithms, which automatically capture specified elements. Unlike traditional tools that rely on writing complex and error-prone XPaths, testRigor allows the team to specify actions by element names or positions. It supports parallel execution across different browsers, simultaneously testing the same test cases. When Techstack implemented a Test Strategy Document across our product development teams, our teamwork became more visible and efficient.
Striving to improve UX, product owners and BAs analyze the application and decide which old functions can be merged with the new ones, and which can be replaced altogether. Functional testing features customer requirements and business logic, as well as product specification and verifies whether the application works as expected. The purpose of regression testing in this case is to verify that recent changes haven’t destroyed or hindered the functional features already in place.
The Objective of Test Strategy
A test plan is a comprehensive document that outlines the various aspects and activities of software testing. A test plan can be seen as an instruction manual or guide that directs the testing effort. It specifies the testing objectives (what needs to be verified and validated), the scope of testing (what will and won’t be tested), and provides a detailed or high-level schedule of the testing activities. The test plan also includes a list of anticipated risks and their respective levels, enabling prioritization of testing based on risk assessment.
It addresses key project-specific tasks and challenges while being specific, comprehensible, practical, and achievable. A test strategy is a high-level document that covers test objectives, methodologies, environments, automation techniques, tools, and risk analysis with a contingency plan. Once the test strategy has been written and approved by the project manager and development team, it usually doesn’t change. An analytical test approach refers to a risk based testing strategy that focuses the majority of testing efforts on high-priority critical functionalities. It’s a data-driven and systematic methodology that involves leveraging proven analytical tools and techniques to optimize testing by extracting important insights through test data. Having a clear testing approach offers a better focus on specific performance and functionality aspects of the software.
Model-based Test Strategies
In a methodical test strategy, you use a standard test basis on different applications. For instance, you may be performing payment testing, and the payment scheme requires mandatory tests for a specific type of transaction. A Test Manager can select one of the following heavyweight regression averse techniques for identifying and analyzing risk. The team needs to share the identified risks with their Project Manager to chalk out the steps for their mitigation. In a practical scenario, it is generally observed that the testing team cannot mitigate all the risks.
Teams usually focus on identifying and taking care of defects after they are apparent or have already occurred. This approach usually comes into the picture when the involvement of testers during early software development stages is limited. Primary testing activities occur after the development phase is over, as testers receive either partially or fully completed software for functionality validation.
Risk-Based Testing Techniques
So they can compare them later on against previous versions of the same app or site. This practice offers valuable inputs for test planning and creating a practical test approach. You can go as far as involving stakeholders in identifying critical test scenarios, defining acceptance criteria, and validating test results. The fostering sense of shared responsibility and ownership reflects in the project quality. If a system needs an enormous volume of realistic and diverse test data, managing it can be a menace.
Native Mobile App Testing
This step requires a massive amount of attention to detail, accuracy, and adherence to necessary testing procedures to validate the compliance, performance, and functionality of a software product. The testing approach also refers to the testing techniques, tools, strategies, and methodologies for testing any software product. The risk-based testing types can plummet the quality risks by a considerable count. The products of risk analysis affect the design specification and implementation. These types are considerably dependent on the group, a wide cross-section of people from all stakeholder groups, such as technical and business groups.
If the organization fails to resolve this problem, the QA team should abandon the requirements-based analytical test strategy and opt for another one, i.e., a risk-based analytical test strategy. The analytical test strategy identifies the conditions to be tested after analyzing the test basis, whether it’s risk or requirement. Deciding on the right test approach involves carefully considering the testing objectives, the project’s goals, and overall risk assessment.