The business and team impact of poor test management is often ignored or
dismissed. However, the test management process or organizational quality
directly impacts team productivity and application quality across the SDLC.
Test management tools exist to standardize and provide structure to the test
management process.
Effective test management enables Agile teams to prioritize, organize,
manage resources, and measure software quality accurately and efficiently.
An effective test management process provides a scalable structure for all
things testing. It improves team efficiency by eliminating wasted time. The
same wasted time that typically produces release bottlenecks and delays in
team schedules.
Test management impacts any Agile team that relies on organization to
accomplish significant amounts of high-quality work in tight and ever-
changing timeframes. Test management affects all Agile work styles -
Kanban, Scrum, Scrumban as well as any custom Agile method.
Key Takeaways
● What is test management?
● Learn how to get the most impact from Test Management.
● How does test organization impact an Agile team?
● Why is test management important for team productivity?
● Discover how effective test management improves test efficiency,
effectiveness, and business value.
This guide details the importance of test management for managing
resources, documentation, task prioritization, and test status to improve
software application quality and Agile team productivity.
What is Test Management?
Test management is a method of organizing test artifacts. Test management
tools provide a flexible, scalable, accessible, and standardized procedures for
handling test management. Regardless of the tool used, test management
helps teams to improve their overall productivity through task and resource
organization.
Test management performs the following tasks within an Agile team:
- Test case development
- Feature or test documentation
- Issue and test prioritization
- Defect management and tracking
- Test execution organization using variable test suites
- Test execution status and tracking
- Objective business reporting for defects and software quality metrics
- Provides access to team members for test artifacts and application test data
Test management enables the effective and efficient management of a
software application’s test artifacts and objectively documents test results,
repeatedly. Test management enables development teams to control,
analyze, and track the software testing process and resources that ensures a
higher-quality application.
How does Test Management impact Agile Teams?
Test management tools impact Agile teams by supporting collaboration,
communication, data analysis to ensure and define application quality levels.
By using test management methods and tools, Agile teams have access to
all relevant test deliverables. Test cases, plans, execution status, and defects
are all visible and trackable in a single location. No more rifling around trying
to find tests and execution status manually. No more attempting to track it
all within a spreadsheet.
Test management tools offer a repository, version control, and easy access
in one place. Without a test management system, QA testers spend a
significant amount of time looking for existing test cases to re-use, and when
it takes too long to find them, then a new, possibly duplicate test is developed.
Re-work wastes time and creates a disorganized, often chaotic
system of test case storage and control.
Test management tools also track defects and test execution results. Often
teams can easily trace test cases to requirements, user stories, defects, and
test execution results. Tracking and traceability enable software teams to
ensure regulatory compliance if needed, or to provide tracking and
management for defects. Accurate tracking ensures requirements or user
story acceptance criteria have tests associated to them and ensures
sufficient test coverage exists.
Test management also allows for test execution efficiency through test suite
creation and scheduling. Both ensure effective resource management by
knowing who is assigned to test what, when, and even where. So, if a bug
pops up later, it’s far easier to locate the test and correct it to ensure defects
are identified during any future test executions.
Finally, test management tools provide the ability to manage multiple
projects in a single location. Most tools include version control, so tests are
not inadvertently deleted or edited by users without appropriate credentials.
The system automatically creates a new version of the test case and stores
the existing one. Execution status and documentation are never lost, or the
team isn’t using the incorrect file version. For example, when tests are
stored in spreadsheets or document files they are often lost or are invalid
due to lost changes or updates. Testing is expensive, organizations can’t
afford to constantly re-work test deliverables. Agile teams using test
management tools perform testing with less lost time, missed expectations,
or unnecessary re-work.
Why does Test Management Impact Team Productivity?
Ineffective test management holds back a team’s potential productivity.
How? Simply by being unorganized and inefficient. The inability to find tests
to re-use wastes test development time and creates test duplicates. Test
duplicates add to the overall test suite but don’t add validity or test coverage
because they are repetitive. Most Agile teams don’t have excess time to
repeat test development or execution.
Additionally, with effective test management productivity improves by
reducing waste and eliminating QA bottlenecks caused by re-work or wasted
time. Testers are better able to keep up with test development and
execution when both processes are organized within a test management
tool. Test execution tasks are assignable and trackable to ensure all tests are
executed.
Defects cause enough schedule delays without making the problem worse
with poor test management organization. Improve team productivity by
reducing chaos, re-work, and duplicate test generation and execution.
Measuring Quality – Does the Truth Hurt or Help?
Test management tools measure application quality by leveraging test
execution and status data to produce accurate reports. Use the application
test passed and failed data to build a stronger application. Reporting enables
the team to determine problematic areas in the application that fail
repeatedly.
Release time? Where does the software quality stand? Sometimes the truth
hurts when actual data reveals your software application quality is poor.
However, at the same time the team understands clearly where the quality is
as opposed to where it needs to be. By measuring application quality using
the business analytics provided by a test management tool there’s no longer
any guessing on application quality. The team knows what they are releasing
and can work on improvements that truly affect software quality.
Test management is a process of organization testing that is aided with the
use of test management tools. Test management negatively impacts Agile
team productivity and release schedules when handled poorly or ignored. On
the other hand, an organized, standardized test management tool enables
team collaboration, data sharing, effective test coverage, reduces costs, and
measures accurate application quality.
References
1. https://smartbear.com/blog/why-use-test-management-tool/
2. https://www.lambdatest.com/learning-hub/test-management
3. https://theqalead.com/topics/what-are-test-management-tools/
