The Essential Components of a Successful Test Concept

A Test Concept describes the necessary process-related and technical information from planning to execution and reporting within the scope of testing. The resources required, both test environments and people should be stated.

Major elements of a test concept

• Test strategy, including a list of the major functionality to be covered.
• Roles and responsibilities, listing the actual staff.
• Infrastructure, including test environments and data.
• Development procedure and elements to be tested.
• Test case creation
• Test case execution
• defect handling

Key success factors for testing

A Test Concept should be created before the development process starts to derive the maximum efficiency during the project lifecycle.

Key success factors are:

• A clear definition of the Quality Acceptance goals at the start of the project.
• Identification of core business processes which are impacted by the project, to determine which parts of the software are key parts of the system.
• Good quality inputs, in the form of the requirements of the system.
• An independent Quality Assurance resource.
• Determining the scope of testing, i.e., define what is being tested and how it will be tested.
• A clear definition of defect categories.
• Determination of the resources required.
• Assigning appropriate resources, such as subject matter experts and experienced testers.
• An experienced Test Manager to monitor and control the process.
• A Work Management Tool for capturing requirements, test cases, defects, and reporting.