Software test engineering: strategy, design and deployment

Module 1: Introductions

• Welcome and participant expectations:
  • Individual introductions and analysis of each participant's learning objectives.
• Programme overview and target skills:
  • Detailed introduction to the course structure and clear explanation of the key skills to acquire.

Module 2: Understanding the role and fundamentals of software testing

• Quality challenges in the software development lifecycle.
• Distinguishing test categories (functional, non-functional, automated, etc.).
• The hierarchy of test levels (unit, integration, system and acceptance testing).
• Integrating a coherent test strategy within a project.

Practical exercises

• Jointly design a test strategy outline for a fictional application development scenario.

Module 3: Defining and organising a test strategy

• The components of a test plan: objectives, scope (coverage) and responsibilities.
• Criteria for selecting test types and levels based on identified risks.
• Essential documents resulting from a test strategy (detailed plan, test repository and coverage matrix).

Practical exercises

• Develop a simplified test plan from provided functional specifications.

Module 4: Mastering test design techniques

• Fundamental techniques: equivalence partitioning, decision tables and code path analysis.
• Distinguishing black-box, white-box and exploratory testing.
• Test case traceability methods and writing best practices.

Practical exercises

• Design 3 comprehensive test cases, including preconditions, data, steps and expected results, based on a user scenario.

Module 5: Executing tests and recording results

• Setting up the test environment.
• The detailed manual test execution process.
• Criteria for determining whether a test passes or fails.
• Using dashboards to track results.

Practical exercises

• Execute provided test cases and complete a tracking table with the corresponding statuses.

Module 6: Documenting identified defects

• The components of a defect ticket: title, detailed description and reproduction steps.
• Understanding defect severity, priority and business impact.
• Available defect tracking tools, such as Jira, Mantis and Excel.

Practical exercises

• Write two complete defect tickets based on the results of the previous module.

Module 7: Organising a test campaign

• Systematically planning testing activities within a project.
• Estimating workloads and optimising task allocation.
• Management support tools: backlog management, milestone definition and coverage metrics.

Practical exercises

• Develop a workload plan and design a summary dashboard to monitor the test campaign.

Module 8: Analysing results and optimising practices

• In-depth analysis of campaign results (pass rates, recurring defects, etc.).
• Using lessons learned to support continuous learning.
• Integrating testing into an overall continuous improvement approach.

Practical exercises

• Analyse a dataset from a simulated campaign and propose concrete improvements.