Define test cases | Performance test tools

Maintaining a well-defined test plan

The primary purpose of maintaining a test plan document is to ensure that there are no miscommunications as to the objective and substance of testing. This document also serves as a historic record upon which future testing can be based, such as for regression testing purposes and cross-reference purposes.

All the information discussed in this section belongs to a test plan. If any of the information is not directly available, then valid assumptions can be made as long as the accompanying justifications are documented as well. Along the same lines, any exclusions from the test plan should also be documented along with both the accompanying justifications and the expected risk of such an exclusion to the overall performance quality of the site.

Like any other project documentation, a lot of other useful information should go in to this document as well (for example, a list of dependencies for performance testing to be conducted and successful, as well as entry/exit criterion).

Entry and exit criterion refer to conditions for starting and concluding testing. They assume key significance if performance testing of various components or features happens in parallel, since this would allow efficient utilization of test resources by testing those components first, which meet the entry criterion first.

Last but not least, it is also very useful to include your test strategy as part of the test plan or as a separate document. The test strategy should include any information that would be critical in allowing the test plan reviewers to ascertain whether the testing will be valid and realistic. For example, is your the tooling capable of emulating a realistic site traffic and user experience, or is there additional configuration or work required to ensure that the testing would be realistic?

After the test plan is reviewed and approved by the appropriate stakeholders, it should be put under change control, and any subsequent change to this document should go to the appropriate level of the review process.

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