Chapter 18. Writing and Tracking Test Cases

IN THIS CHAPTER

• The Goals of Test Case Planning

• Test Case Planning Overview

• Test Case Organization and Tracking

In Chapter 17, "Planning Your Test Effort," you learned about the test planning process and the creation of a project test plan. The details and information that the test plan communicates are necessary for the project to succeed, but they are a bit abstract and high level for an individual tester's day-to-day testing activities.

The next step down in the test planning process, writing and tracking test cases, is one that more directly influences your typical tasks as a software tester. Initially you may be involved only in running test cases that someone else has written, but you'll very soon be writing them for yourself and for other testers to use. This chapter will teach you how to effectively develop and manage those test cases to make your testing go as efficiently as possible.

Highlights of this chapter include

• Why writing and tracking test cases is important

• What a test design specification is

• What a test case specification is

• How test procedures should be written

• How test cases should be organized