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Methodology Explained
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M2Q methodology uses 5 milestones to achieve the necessary quality to satisfy the customer:
· Test planning
· Test Case development
· Environment preparation
· Test execution
· Analysis
- 1st milestone : Test planning
The first milestone is the most important one. The goal, in function of quality of the end product, is determined and defined in this mile stone.
- Test strategy
The test strategy defines the goals of the test process according to the system, customer and project requirements. The strategy describes the how to reach the defined goals by answering key questions like what tests, how much, organisation of the tests, what processes and methods to use...
- Test Plan
According to the test strategy and test goals, the test plans are created. A test plan contains who will be testing and what will be tested, and some criteria to guarantee a certain level of quality.
- 2nd milestone : Test Case Development
M2Q uses a structured method to create test cases, giving the following benefits
· Early quality check on existing material
· Business requirements are linked to test cases
· Easily to adapt test cases
· Automation is no problem
· Test coverage
· Prioritize and risk based execution
· Re-usability
· Naming conventions
· Unified way to develop test cases
· Dynamic and flexible test cases
· Test case is independent of test data
- 3rd milestone : Environment Preparation
Once the test cases are defined, the test environment can be prepared. All the necessary data, interfaces, input ... can be created and placed into the environment.
The software under test can be installed according to the defined procedure. This installation is also a test and a quality check on the user friendliness of the installation process. Before starting the test execution, a 'smoke test' is established; to verify the current version of the software if it is testable for the prepared test type.
- 4th milestone : Test Execution
If the application is testable, the defined tests can be executed in order of their priority and risk, determined in the previous milestones. All results of the test execution are logged.
- 5th milestone : Test Analysis
The test results are analysed and compared to the goals defined in the strategy and/or test plan. All this information is bundled in a test report to give a global overview of the quality of the application. This report can be used to take an objective and risk based release decision.
Depending of the result of the analysis, the next phase can be planned and goals can be set.
Once the predefined goals are reached, a project report is created to provide an overview of the complete testing process and quality levels that were reached in the intermediate steps. This report gives useful information for following projects to optimize and customize the testing process to your organisation. Every time you restart a cycle, valuable knowledge is gained and you can complete/add answers to your original questions (e.g. have all major faults been found, have we performed enough testing?).
Your overall quality is improving constantly with a minimum of extra effort.
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