This section describes the test planning phase of
the quality management lifecycle.
Managing risk
Risk-based testing
allows you to prioritize what needs
to be tested based on the risk that is associated with various test
plans and test cases. With risk-based testing you can focus your resources
on those test assets that have the highest likelihood of failure or
the greatest impact if failure occurs. Ultimately, risk-based testing
helps your team mitigate risk.
Estimating the size of the test effort
As part of the planning process, you can create high-level estimates
of the size of the test planning and test execution efforts. You can also
provide detailed estimates of the time or effort required to run each individual
test case. These estimates help to measure your progress and provides input
to several reports.
Setting up a review process
You can set up a formal review
process in which several
team members can collaborate in the development of a
test plan or test case.
Setting quality objectives
You can use quality objectives to define the overall quality
goals for a release, as well as to define the required entry and exit
criteria for testing. You can use these goals to determine the level
of quality that must be achieved before your product is considered
ready to be released.