Test Plan Document

This is a sample of an outline for a test plan.   It has been designed for medium to small test projects, and thus is fairly lightweight.   It is by necessity general, because each enterprise, each development group, each testing group, and each development project is different.   This outline should be used as a set of guidelines for creating your own standard template; add to it or subtract from it as you find appropriate.   Bear in mind that it is generally better to have an excess of detail in the template—detail which can be removed when creating a specific test plan—than to have to remember to add something that is not in the template.

(Looking for a heavy-duty test plan?   The government and the military are good sources.   Try the one on the IRS Web site:

http://www.irs.ustreas.gov/bus_info/tax_pro/irm-part/part02/28781a.html)

Make sure to fill in the running headers and footers with the product name, draft numbers, revision dates, and page numbers; this is important in places with lots of test projects on the go.   Make sure to include the author’s name, too, so that errors or questions can be addressed to the right person.

  1. OVERVIEW

      1. PRODUCT NAME

      2. PRODUCT REVISION

      3. PROJECT LEADS

          1. Marketing Lead (or other customer representative)

          2. Program Manager

          3. Development Lead

          4. Test Lead

          5. Build and Release Control Engineer

          6. Legal representative

      Include names, phone numbers, and email addresses for each.   Note that this table will differ for a particular company or group.   The goal is to ensure that anyone walking into the company or into the test role can easily identify and contact the people he/she needs to reach.

      4. TEST PROJECT STAFF

          1. Test requirements designers

          2. Test case designers

          3. Test personnel

              1. For manual (i.e. non-automated) tests...