Writing effective test cases

Tips for creating effective test cases –

Today’s post it about writing effective test cases. Many times people use to jump on to test case creation just after reading the requirement which is not the right way. In this way your test cases will be very limited although covering the requirements. Here are points we should follow while writing test cases –

# 1 – Review the requirement document fully . Study all the requirements of the module you are working on thoroughly and make notes. If possible try to get detail understanding of the requirements by discussing with the BA team members. It’s better to make a query log and document all the queries and corresponding resolutions and share it with team. This will help in developing team confidence on you and your confidence on the system to be build. This will also help in validating your understanding on the system.

# 2 – Do brainstorming, after reading the requirements discuss it with peer members. Make notes of this discussion. Such discussion will help in deriving more test cases which one might miss. Remember everyone has different perspective and such discussions can help an individual to find out more cases for testing the application.

# 3 – After doing the above exercises do not jump onto the test case creation part rather first prepare high level test scenarios in relation to the requirements. You may/may not discuss these scenarios with the peer members.

# 4 – it is advisable to have a “Test Case Checklist” maintained at your end containing the general rules to be followed while creating the test cases like naming conventions should be in accordance with what has been decided, spelling mistakes should not be there, some specific words that should/should not be used in test cases and so on. Many a times organization have such checklist ready in case it is not then you can maintain your own. Such checklist helps a lot while submitting the test cases for peer / lead review and saves a lot of review time.

# 5 – Once you are ready with the high level test scenarios then move on the test case creation wherein you can create test cases in the organization specific template mentioning the detailed tests steps, test data, expected results and other related details.

# 6 – Have a “Traceability Matrix” . In case your organization does not maintains it, maintain one at your end. This is for the obvious reason for mapping the requirements with the test cases. It will also help in finding out the left requirements and the redundant test cases if any.

Thumb Rule – Do enough , fast and effective paper work/brainstorming before moving on to actual test case creation.