Taking Testing Seriously

CHAPTER 4How to Do a Test Strategy

—By James Bach, Michael Bolton, Huib Schoots, and Lalit Bhamare

Without strategy, you cannot test intentionally. So, congratulations! If you have ever tested with intention, then you have had a strategy. The problem is, most testers aren't fully aware of what their strategy is—or even how to think about it or talk about it.

People talk a lot about methodology (general ways of doing things), and they talk a lot about test cases (specific instructions or ideas for performing specific tests). Strategy? Not so much. Yet we think mastering test strategy is far more important than writing down test cases.

Our definition of test strategy is the set of ideas that guide test design for a specific project. As always, we separate ideas from documents. Ideas come first. You can have a test strategy without any kind of test strategy document, and in our experience, that's how most people do it: they have notions about what needs to be tested and how, and they act upon them.

Our view of strategy roughly fits the way that term is used in the military, which is: higher-level decisions about how to win a specific war that create a context and foundation for the many lower-level decisions. Strategy is above the level of tactics, or specific techniques, to solve a standard problem. Strategy is also different from logistics, which is all about getting the right resources to the right places at the right times so that the strategy can be fulfilled.

Military theorist ...