Importance of test management strategy and how it differs from the test plan

In this modern age of digitalization, old and conventional waterfall models have been obsoleted by new and advanced agile & DevOps. Later in the information technology sector, software testing was not considered to be a perfect fit process for the software development life-cycle. And even if some of the organizations get their hands and minds involved in testing they used to conduct it at the ending stage of the software development life-cycle. That’s the time when problems start gathering around the software and the team members have to face a product or an app full of bugs and defects. Software testing is no doubt a challenging process because the chances of duplicate test cases are high, chances of ever-rising bugs are always there and managing tests is extremely difficult. For this purpose, organizations try to implement the use of special software testing tools including; test case management software, defect tracking tools, issue management tools, etc. But the use of these tools would also provide no benefit if a proper test strategy is not developed. 

The priority of an organization must not simply deliver the product however the priority must be to deliver a flawless product. An effective test management strategy must be followed to conduct rapid tests in a defect-free manner to ensure timely delivery of products. In thIS article, we will discuss why it is necessary to have a test management strategy in the current project.

Importance of a test management strategy

A proper test management strategy is heavenly important because;

To deal with the changes – With the development of Agile methods, a testing project is always under up-gradation and experience changes concerning business requirements. A particular part of the app or product may be delivered in one sprint and the other part in the next sprint. Customers may ask for the same things in different ways or ask for new things based on the same ideas. This situation may occur when the test cases are not updated according to the new requirements, leading to the failure of some test cases or certain critical business issues that have been approved. Therefore, the only way out to tackle such type of situations is to have an effective test management strategy that makes sure that all the quality assurance team members are constantly aware of new changes in requirements and is always ready to write effective test cases to test those requirements.

Ease of assigning tasks and duties – A test management strategy is significant because it assists the test managers in assigning tasks and responsibilities to the team members via tracking whose skill set best matches the particular task. 

Timely project reports – Moving more towards the fortunes of a test management strategy you will get to know that it assists you to maintain reports based on how the project is tested in real-time. This makes it possible for all the team members to be on the same page when it comes to knowing the status of project completion. These reports improve the overall quality assurance process because it’s possible to track from these reports that how products are behaving. 

Environment Scalability – Test management makes sure that the data or testing information is stockpiled in such a way that every single team member can have its access easily. A test management strategy creates such an environment where communication and interaction gaps are eliminated and information or data sharing has become easier whether it’s relevant to the project requirements, project status, etc.  The use of a test management tool is a great decision in this regard as it allows scalable cloud-based data exchange, that makes it possible for every team member to access it without encountering any challenge. 

Difference between a test plan and test management strategy

A test plan is a typical document having a page or two that covers the objectives or goals of testing, the type of testing that will be used, the scope of testing, and the requirements. However, a test management strategy guides the team members at every stage of the development life-cycle that how the testing will be carried out effectively. The test plan informs the team about the specification and if changes in the specifications. Test management strategy is more about the general approaches which remain unchanged.

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