Why software Test cases and Test plans have introduced and what should be the Test Coverage?

A software is a fragile thing even though it is intangible. World is moving fast and software industry moving faster. A software is built on according to the requirements and once development team received the requirements, we can start the Quality Assurance process at the same time. Dev and QA team can suggest best way of doing things and tune the requirement into perfect shape. Once everything is finalizing QA can start writing test cases.

If a company is recently adopting to the test case writing then trust me this is the bored job ever according to me. But with the time and correct guidance this will help your fragile software to remove the word fragile and add the word agile.

How can we ensure that our test cases are up to the standard?

Example: A software is designed to add point to point private rates where it has Effective/Expiry Date, UOM, Price, Origin and a Destination and should be able to search, update and delete.

In here as a development team we can suggest and clarify the things which are not clear. Such as;

01. Can we add duplicate?

02. Can we update rates to create a duplicate?

03. Can a rate be overlapped with effective and expiry date?

and etc.

if a above questions are answered as follows.

01. User should not be able to add duplicate.

02. User should not be able to update to create duplicate.

03. Rates can not be overlapped.  

and if we asked to test this above scenario then my approach should be,

01. Add a Private Rate using ABC organization login. - Should Pass

02. Update the Private Rate using ABC organization login. - Should Pass

03. Delete the Private Rate using ABC organization login. - Should Pass

04. Add duplicate Private Rate using ABC organization login. - Should Fail

04. Update a Private Rate to match with the existing private rate using ABC organization login. - Should Fail

05. Add overlapping Private Rate using ABC organization login. - Should Fail

06. Add valid range of Private Rate using ABC organization login. - Should Pass

07. Add a same record which is in ABC organization using XYZ organization login. - Should Pass

08. Update as same record which is in ABC organization using XYZ organization login. - Should Pass

09. Search All Private Rate using ABC organization login. - Should Pass

10. Search with Expiry date using ABC organization login. - Should Pass

11. Search with Effective date using ABC organization login. - Should Pass

12. Search with Expiry date using ABC organization login. - Should Pass

13. Search with UOM using ABC organization login. - Should Pass

14. Search with Origin using ABC organization login. - Should Pass

15. Search with Destination using ABC organization login. - Should Pass

16. Search the Private Rate which added using ABC organization using XYZ organization login. - Should Fail

This is the test plan and each test case have its own expected result. This should be reviewed and verified by developers and QA team and if there are missing test cases or invalid test cases then it should be discussed and take necessary actions.

A good test plan should cover every scenario which is relevant to the given final requirement. The main reason of a test plan is to ensure the requirement test coverage is satisfied and if the code is changed then to ensure the old feature is working and on track unless the feature is completely changed.

Give your feedback on this and enjoy your challenges.