Advanced Software Testing – Vol. 2, 2nd Edition

As a final note, in some organizations following agile lifecycles, the word plan has become a near obscenity; the mere mention of it can bring on howls such as, “Plans aren’t agile.” This is ironic, actually, because most of our clients using agile are following much more rigorous and carefully choreographed development and testing processes than our clients that are not.

The second issue is the unique, experimental mode of early testing. Testing of early prototypes is all about finding out what we don’t know, subjecting questionable designs to rigorous testing to see what might not work. Confidence building is not an objective, typically. These different test objectives for earlier testing, evolving into a more typical role of testing in the final stages, requires the test manager to change plans and strategies as the project progresses. Again, flexibility is key.