What books or sites you recommend for learning how to create the best testing strategy for a product?

Question

I work for a very complex and configurable product and I need to improve testing strategy for it. I dont want to deep dive into each of numerous test cases created for it before - instead I want to rework or validate the whole testing strategy that was chosen. Maybe, I should apply ACC testing approach from Google, maybe there are better approaches, or maybe the only solution for my case is a brute force approach when we just generate as much test cases as possible.

Could you please recommend some book, site, interesting paper on this topic? I.e. how to choose a proper testing strategy for a product?

Or, maybe, you can recommend a great working approach for this that you have adopted.

Answer 1

James Bach's Heuristic Testing Strategy Model is a fairly simple but efficient set of heuristics for testing strategies.

It creates 5 big project aspects that will impact testing:

Project Environment includes resources, constraints, and other elements in the project that may enable or hobble our testing. Sometimes a tester must challenge constraints, and sometimes accept them.

Product Elements are things that you intend to test. Software is complex and invisible.Take care to cover all of it that matters, not just the parts that are easy to see.

Quality Criteria are the rules, values, and sources that allow you as a tester to determine if the product has problems. Quality criteria are multidimensional and often hidden or self-contradictory.

Test Techniques are heuristics for creating tests. All techniques involve some sort of analysis of project environment, product elements, and quality criteria.

Perceived Quality is the result of testing. You can never know the “actual” quality of a software product, but through the application of a variety of tests, you can make an informed assessment of it.

I've created a mindmap of this model for easier visualization. You can download it here.

Answer 2

There are lot of sites .You just need to google testing strategies. You can follow the following steps.

• Step 1 – Scope and Overview:
• Step 2 – Test Approach:
• Step 3 – Test Environment:
• Step 4 – Testing Tools:
• Step 5 – Release Control:
• Step 6 – Risk Analysis:

Simple Tips To Write Test Strategy Document

1. Include product background in test strategy document. In the first paragraph of your test strategy document answer – Why stakeholders want to develop this project? This will help to understand and prioritize things quickly.
2. List all important features you are going to test. If you think some features are not part of this release then mention those features under “Features not to be tested” label.
3. Write down the test approach for your project. Clearly, mention what types of testing you are going to conduct? I.e. Functional testing, UI testing, Integration testing, Load/Stress testing, Security testing etc.
4. Answer questions like How you are going to perform functional testing? Manual or automation testing? Are you going to execute all test cases from your test management tool?
5. Which bug tracking tool you are going to use? What will be the process when you will find a new bug?
6. What are your test entry and exit criteria?
7. How will you track your testing progress? What metrics are you going to use for tracking test completion?
8. Task distribution – Define roles and responsibilities of each team member.
9. What documents will you produce during and after the testing phase?
10. What all risk you see in test completion?