What is a Test Plan? What should a Test Plan Include

In general, testing commences with a test plan and terminates with acceptance testing. A test plan is a general document for the entire project that defines the scope, approach to be taken, and the schedule of testing as well as identifies the test items for the entire testing process and the person responsible for the different activities of testing.

The test planning can be done well before the actual testing commences and can be done in parallel with the coding and design phases. The inputs for forming the test plan are: (1) project plan (2) requirements document and (3) system design document. The project plan is needed to make sure that the test plan is consistent with the overall plan for the project and the testing the test plan is consistent with the overall plan for the project and the testing schedule matches that of the project plan.

The requirements document and the design document are the basic documents used for selecting the test units and deciding the approaches to be used during testing. A test plan should contain the following:

    Test unit specification
    Features to be tested
    Approach for testing
    Test deliverable
    Schedule
    Personnel allocation. 

One of the most important activities of the test plan is to identify the test units. A test unit is a set of one or more modules, together with associate data, that are from a single computer program and that are the objects of testing. A test unit can occur at any level and can contain from a single module to the entire system.

Thus, a test unit may be a module, a few modules, or a complete system. The levels are specified in the test plan by identifying the test units for the project. Different units are usually specified for unit integration, and system testing. The identification of test units may be a module, a few modules or a complete system. The levels are specified in the test plan by identifying the test units for the project.

Different units are usually specified for unit, integration and system testing. The identification of test units establishes the different levels of testing that will be performed in the project. The basic idea behind forming test units is to make sure that testing is being performed incrementally, with each increment including only a few aspects that need to be tested. A unit should be such that it can be easily tested.

In other words, it should be possible to form meaningful test cases and execute the unit without much effort with these test cases. Features to be tested include all software features and combinations of features that should be tested. A software feature is a software characteristic specified or implied by the requirements or design documents. These may include functionality, performance, design constraints, and attributes.  

The approach for testing specifies the overall approach to be followed in the current project. The technique that will be used to judge the testing effort should also be specified. This is sometimes called the testing criterion. Testing deliverable should be specified in the test plan before the actual testing begins. Deliverables could be a list of test cases that were used, detailed result of testing, test summary report, test log, and data about the code coverage. In general, a test case specification report, test summary report, and a test log should always be specified as deliverables.