Project- Managing .

So you are into a project as a Tester – when and how do you start your work ? I know very open ended question – no details of the experience or skills of the Tester, no details of the project, which stage the project is in  – and a question what do you do as a tester in your project ? When do you start your work as a tester?

I remember in my initial years of  testing, I was part of projects which had been going on for years , we had Release Plan Test Plan , Test cases and most of the time Project lead would give  test case doc, go through it – Identify the Testcases for the planned Release, get in confirmed, check the Testing schedule and execute test cases and update the results and document with version control and used citrix for defect management – this was almost 14-15 years back .

Now when I lead a project , I ensure I have atleast one testing resource from the beginning of the project and the things I give everybody in the team to pick up and start their work

1. RFP –  Request for Proposal (Response to RFP)
2. SOW – Statement of Work
3. Requirement Document
4. Other available technical document
5. Project Management Plan

Why RFP and SOW ?

Before you start on project you should know what solution has been proposed to your client . Response to Request for proposal (RFP)would have the client’s requirements, Solution to their requirement, Approach, assumptions and lot of initial information on what your client/customer was asking for, This would give some direction on how to go about meeting your customer’s expectation.

Statement Of Work (SoW) will give you the terms and conditions of delivering the project. It will give you major milestone dates and also the $ amount associated with each milestone. This document has legal implications and is confidential.Sow will help you plan dates , tasks and activities. (Well , your project manager will have the freedom to share or not share SoW information with the team, usually the financial details will not be disclosed by the Manager) I have always tried to give the relevant information of SoW to my team so that everybody understand the project commitments and understand the initial Project plan which is based on the SoW.

Technical documents – most of you would have seen and worked on, so am not explaining it here.What probably I would like to tell here is what different deliverables you can come up as testers  at the initial stages of the project.

Test Strategy – Initial draft on Testing Approach - what strategy you would plan to do for Testing activities in the Project.- Business Requirement Doc, RFP will be the inputs for this Document, usually ownership of this document is with PM/ Test Manager. I will not be giving too many details in this post.

Test Plan – Initial draft of Test Plan detailing what  test, how to test , when to test, who will test , duration  The input for this document is SRS, Use case document which comes in little later during the project.

Test Scenarios – Basically very high level test objectives. Inputs for this document will be Business Requirement Document BRD

Traceability Matrix – Input will be BRD, Test Scenarios.

Test Case Doc – Input BRD, Software requirement Specification, Functional Requirement specification FRS.

Which ever role you are performing in your project , it is always good to go through important documents. You should be asking questions when you have any doubts about the project  - Its up to your manager’s discretion what all information he/she wants to share but - Every team member is stakeholder in the project just as client is and should be well informed :)