Artifact: Test Guidelines

Test Guidelines	Describes the test guidelines.
Worker:	Test Designer
Enclosed in:	Software Development Plan
Template:	Word template
Purpose Brief Outline Timing Tailoring

Purpose

The purpose of the Test Guidelines is to describe how you define the strategy for test in each iteration.

Brief Outline

Here is a proposed outline of a Test Guidelines document:

1 Introduction

A brief description of the role and purpose of the Test Guidelines is included here.

2 References

A description of related or referenced documents.

3 Goals of Testing

A statement to identify why testing is performed and used by the organization.

4 Testing Standards

This section identifies and describes all guidelines and standards to be used in the planning, design, implementation, execution, and evaluation activities:

• Test Case standards: A statement identifying the types of test cases that should be developed for testing, such as valid, invalid, boundary, etc.
• Naming Convention: A description of how each kind of entity (such as test case and test procedure) should be named.
• Design Guidelines: A statement identifying test procedure and, or script modularity goals, for reuse and maintenance.
• Test Data standards: A statement of how data will be selected or created and restored to support testing.

5 Key Measures

A definition of what kind of measures you will use to determine the progress of test activities (what type of defect counts are going to be used, how to measure successfully executed test cases).

6 Test Completion Criteria

A statement identifying recommended completion and evaluation criteria.

7 Defect Management Guidelines

Statement identifying how defects will be managed.

8 Change Management Criteria

A statement identifying how test artifacts will be managed and maintained.

Timing

Test Guidelines should be ready before the project starts.

Tailoring

You should adjust the outline of the Test Guidelines:

• Some sections may be removed, or added to handle the specific features, and limitations of the specific programming language.
• Some of the sections may be irrelevant for your project.
• The order of the various sections may vary, depending on the system's stakeholders and their focus or interest.