“Test-Governance is the client’s justified investment in testing to gain insight into risk and desired results within a certain timeframe.”

Introduction

We all know what caused the current economic downturn, despite all Corporate Governance rules (a.o. SOX, SAS70). Leo thinks we (the testing world) should/must do a better job. Therefore we need to think about Test-Governance (in short: manageability and justification of testing).

Since clients are very interested in Test-Governance, Leo was asked by many clients to give a workshop on this topic at the client's location.

Workshop

When testing, one needs to find a balance between intense testing (reduces potential damage and creates trust) and light testing (lower costs and shorter lead times). Test-Governance is about manageable testing allowing transparency and justification of testing expenditure in relation to the benefits. A test project which has to meet the expectations of the Test-Governance definition, must be able to answer the following questions with a "yes":

1. Is the objective of the test project in line with the organisational objectives (in line with Corporate and IT Governance)?
2. Is the test approach aimed at obtaining a predefined result (test goal)?
3. Is the money and time expenditure (costs) for realising the test project in balance with the results to achieve and the risks to cover (benefits) as wanted by the organisation?
4. Are in the test project taken decisions traceable?
5.  Are the test cases traceable to the test goals?
6.  Have the appropriate test cases, in accordance with the agreed testing strategy, been created?

The tutorial/workshop is based on the Business Driven Test Management theory. Step-by-step (with the help of checklists) the participants themselves will perform a Test-Governance quick scan on a test project from their own organisation. After the tutorial, the participants themselves are able to determine whether this project meets the Test-Governance requirements or not. If not, the participant will receive improvement suggestions.