Various important Quality Engineering activities need to be prepared for an SAP test project. These activities and subjects are part of the SAP Test Plan. The activities and subjects are divided for the SAP Test Preparation phase and the SAP Test Excution phase. Some of these activities and subjects are also part of the SAP Test Strategy and are relevant input for other activities and subjects.
How to deal with an SAP Test Plan and an SAP Test Schedule starts with their definition:
- The SAP Test Plan is an overview of activities and items to be in place for managing the SAP Test Project, including a description of the activities and the schedule (also called planning).
- The SAP Test Schedule is the detailed breakdown of testing activities in time, for example, when to design, prepare, execute and report specifics tests, aligned with the schedule of the overall SAP Project Plan.
[Note: the general definition of a Test Plan is to be found here. A test schedule in general is defined as: A detailed overview of testing activities to be performed and executed in a specific sequence and time.]
In any SAP IT delivery lifecycle model, a schedule with work items and timelines needs to be created to manage the execution of test activities. This is an SAP (Master) Test Plan in a sequential IT delivery model, and it is a backlog and scrum board in a high-performance IT delivery model.
The SAP Test Strategy is the reference of the organizing and performing activities of the test tasks and serves as an instrument to communicate with the stakeholders on strategic and tactical level. The SAP Test Strategy balances the allocation of quality measures and the investment of testing, to make an optimal distribution of effort over test varieties and test approaches and determines test coverage and test intensity.
The SAP Test Plan describes the SAP test project, including the activities and the schedule. Keep in mind that a test plan is NOT a description of the actual tests (logical and physical test cases). The SAP Test Plan is the linking pin between the tactical and operational level. The Test Plan translates the Test Strategy in such a way that everyone in a test project can understand the activities to be done.
Input for the SAP Test Schedule:
Besides the SAP Test Plan, which describes the roadmap to achieve the agreed goals and quality, the SAP Test Schedule uses the Project Scope and the SAP Quality Risk Analysis as input for a detailed overview of tasks and activities in the project’s timeline. The output of SAP Quality Risk Analysis (risk classes) is used to determine test intensity and the sequence of test activities to be executed. It balances the time used for test case design and test case execution. Higher risk parts get more effort than lower risks. The schedule should start with the most critical risk areas and processes first, spread out over the different test varieties (like SIT, FAT, UAT, E2E, RT).
Governance, Indicators & Reporting in the SAP Test Plan
An important part of the SAP Test Plan is to have a test governance structure in place which is in line with the project needs and stakeholder expectations. Examples are: which meetings will be scheduled, which deliverables will be shared, what is the frequency of meetings and reports, and which stakeholders will be involved. Furthermore, an overview of relevant indicators and metrics should be included in the SAP Test Plan. These indicators will give insight in progress during test design and test execution stages. More on indicators and reporting.
Eventually, all insights in quality gates, indicators and metrics, contribute to establish the confidence that the business solution, consisting of the whole SAP landscape/ scope, other systems and business processes, will deliver the expected business value.