Test Plan vs Test Strategy

Test Plan vs Test Strategy: What’s the Difference?

Before we start Test Plan vs Test Strategy, we need to know about what are test plan and test strategy?.

Test plans and test strategies play a very important role in the process of testing a software application a good test plan and good strategies always refrain from bugs in an application.

As software testers, we should be aware of these two terms, which play a major role to test a software application. Here we will understand what is Test Plan and Test Strategies:

What is a test plan?

A Test Plan is known as a document that has all the beneficial information and is used to test the software application. A test plan is a deliverable that is defined by the test lead or testing team.

A test plan can consist of all QA-related activities like it defines the scope of the project, related roles and responsibilities, test objectives, entry and exit criteria of testing, and all the related risks which we are going to face while testing an application.

The Test plan will be based on the requirement gathered by a stockholder, which can be used by other testers or team members when due for some reason any of the team members are replaced by other testers so by using this document a tester should understand the requirement and can collect all related information that can be used to test a software application. Test plan can also include who will test what, suppose there is a module 1 which is going to be tested by “Tester A” but due to some reason “Tester A” is replaced by “Tester B” so by using a test plan “Tester B” can collect information and proceed to test application this can save time and have a better understanding about testing an application.

What is a test strategy?

The basic purpose of test strategy is to define the testing process, it defines all related information about testing, like what tool we are going to use to test software application, and it defines the different modules which are undergoing while testing the application, it also defines the time needed to test module, a number of resources, what strategy we are going to use to test application, including information about high-level design, test planning, it also includes information about our test environment on which our application is going to be tested.

Below are some important sections a Test Strategy should have:

1. Project Overview: This is the thing that defines first in test strategies, project overview always plays a major role in test strategies, it defines what is the need of this project and it also defines what objectives the project will enlist.
2. Requirement Scope: The requirement scope will define the application scope and functional scope.
3. High-Level Test Plan: Test strategy defines the test scope of software application; test scope defines the scope and out the scope of an application.
4. Test Approach: This section will define the test approach followed by the testing team to test the application.

In the above diagram the test approach is differentiated into two sections:

1. Strategy & planning
2. Test Execution: The test strategy and test planning phase will be one time for the overall program and Test execution will be repetitive after each cycle in the overall program.
3. Test Coverage: Test coverage will define the process followed by QA to optimize the coverage of functional requirements in the test cases and test scenarios. The requirement Traceability matrix is an example of test coverage as it maps each requirement with a test scenario and test case.
4. Test Environment: The test environment define the suite of software and hardware on which our application is going to be tested.
5. QA Deliverables and Metrics: The output of each phase is different deliverables like software requirement specification, requirement traceability matrix, test case document, bug report, etc. Which can be used to test software applications.
6. Defect Management: it defines the defect management strategies.

Test Plan vs Test Strategy

Difference between Test Plan and Test Strategy:

Conclusion:

In Test Plan, all modules are defined with the corresponding tester and test cycle number have been mentioned who tested a module, therefore if some module fails in the particular cycle, we can easily check the corresponding cycle and check whether the specified module was passed or failed and if there is any failure, we can fix it.

Test strategy can’t be changed frequently as it has some standards test strategies will affect the quality of the testing, Good test planning and strategies lead to the quality of the product.

Read Also:

• How to Write Test Cases?
• Types of Test Cases in Software Testing