The Importance of a Test Plan

Using a test plan adds structure and accountability to your QA cycle. You know exactly what was tested and what’s working; but, more importantly, you know exactly what’s broken. Test plans can be as high-level or low-level as you need, but having one is critical to ensuring your application or website does what is promised. Having a test plan in place, ready to execute at a moment’s notice, also means that you have a great metric to analyze build progress – you have a set number of test cases to run against each new build to make sure everything is still working as the code changes. Tickets can easily get closed out and buried, but with a good test plan in place those issues get reopened and noticed.

A well-defined test plan is essential for maintaining a smooth and efficient QA cycle. 

Test plans provide the necessary structure and accountability to ensure that every aspect of your application or website is thoroughly tested. They allow you to keep track of what has been tested and what is working and highlight any existing issues or bugs that need to be addressed.

Furthermore, having a test plan readily available for execution at a moment’s notice offers numerous benefits. It provides a valuable metric for analyzing the progress of each build. You can easily identify any potential issues that may arise as the code changes by running a set number of test cases against every new build. Through early detection and resolution, this planned approach helps you avoid problems later growing into more complicated and large-scale difficulties.

It’s way too easy for tickets to get closed out and buried in a fast-paced development environment, which means important issues could easily go unnoticed. 

However, with a robust test plan, these issues are less likely to slip through the cracks. A good test plan ensures that any problems found during testing are properly documented and tracked. This means that even if an issue is initially resolved and closed, it will be reopened and noticed if it reappears in a subsequent build, allowing for continuous improvement and quality assurance.