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Test Plan Vs Test Strategy

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Test Plan Vs Test StrategyWhat is the difference between a test plan vs a test strategy? This is a tricky software testing question, because there is a lot of variation in these documents among different companies, and because the two documents are focused on similar things.

In case you have previous experience working with these documents, it’s best to describe in detail what the differences between a test plan vs a test strategy were at the company you worked at. Don’t worry that the forms or the content of the documents might be different at your old company and at the one you’re applying at – it’s always good to have detailed, real-life experience.

If you haven’t worked with these document previously, explain them in the following way.

A test strategy is a high-level document that describes the testing portion of the software testing life cycle. It is usually a company-level document, and it contains information such as how much time should be spent on testing, which testing approaches should be used, how the testing team should interact with the developers, and what the testing schedule will be.

A test plan is a low-level document, which describes in detail the approach to testing a specific application. It will also contain information such as who will be testing, and when the tests should be performed, but this information will be more granular than in the test strategy. In addition, a test plan might go to the level of specifying individual test cases.

In summary: if you’re asked to describe the difference between a test plan vs a test strategy, refer to your own experience if you can. If you don’t have previous experience working with these documents, explain that they both describe aspects of the testing process of an application, but that the test strategy is a higher level document than the test plan.

What is a test plan?

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When interviewers ask you this software testing question, they are mostly looking to see what experience you have with formal testing documentation. As always, take the opportunity to do more than to simply answer the question. You should either point to your relevant experience, or if you don’t have such experience, you should show that you’ve researched all major aspects (such as formal documentation) of software testing.

First, if you have had experience designing or working from a test plan, describe your experiences in detail. Talk about how the test plan was structured, what your responsibilities are, what you liked about working with it and what you did not.

However, if you’ve never worked in a company that wrote test plans, you should still be able to give the following reasonable answer.

A test plan is a document specifying how a product will be tested. There are different templates for test plans, but most test plans include at least the scope of testing, the schedule, the required resources, possible risks, and a list of test deliverables. In case a company has not defined the form of its own test plan, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has defined a general template for a test plan that should be adaptable to the needs of individual companies.