To have a proper testing of software, the project manager, or test manager, should plan the test activities in advance. To assist with this task, I list on this page an outline for a software test plan.

Test organization

This section of the test plan describes the organization around the testing activities. Responsibilities and used resources should be named under this topic.

Communication & procedures

An overview of the communication during the testing activities should be provided in this section. Also the procedures during the software test for bugfixing, version control e.a. should be listed.

Test strategy

This section contains on overview of the test strategy used for the software testing, acceptance criteria and a statement to which level will be tested.

Test items

An overview of the functions to be tested and their priorities should be listed in this section of the software test plan.

Test deliverables

A description of the products used by testing.

• Test input


• Test reports


• Infrastructure to be used


• Progress reports

Test activities

An overview of the activities needed for testing, e.g.

• Installation infrastructure


• Writing of test scripts


• The actual performance of the test


• Monitoring progress


• Creation of reports

Schedule

The actual planning of the software test activities and resources used.