Test closure activities are those activities which are performed at the end of the testing process. These are usually performed after the product is delivered, like generating test report etc. According to test process, it is essential to guarantee that processes for delivering source information essential for evaluating exit criteria and reporting are available and effective.

Test planning, monitoring and control also includes explanation of information requirements and techniques used for collecting the information.

Right from test analysis phase to execution, through design and implementation, Test Manager must ascertain that the information is being provided by the team members in a correct and timely way. This is necessary for efficient assessment and reporting.

Rate of reports and their depth depends upon the project as well as the organization. Both these factors should be discussed during test planning after talks with the concerned project stakeholders.

What Are Test Closure Activities?

After test execution phase is declared finished, the important outputs should be captured for archiving or conveying to the concerned person.

Together these tasks form the test closure activities, which fall into these four key groups:

1. Checking for completion of tests

Here the Test Manager ensures that every test work has actually been completed. For instance, each planned test must have been run or avoided deliberately.

All known bugs must be corrected, deferred, or acknowledged to be permanent limitations. In case of bug correction, the corrections must be tested as well.

2. Handing over test objects

The relevant work products must be passed on to the relevant people. For instance, known bugs must be conveyed to the system maintenance team.

Tests and its setup information must be conveyed to the maintenance testing team. Sets of manual as well as automated regression tests must be recorded and passed on to the system maintenance team.

3. Learning Experience

An important component of test closure activities is the meetings that discuss and document lessons learned from the testing as well as the complete software development life cycle.

These discussions focus on ensuring that good processes are repeated and poor ones are eliminated in future. If some issues remain unresolved, they become part of project plans.

Some of the areas considered in future test plans include:

1. Were a broad spectrum of users involved in analysis around quality risks? For example, many times unexpected defects are discovered late into the project.
   • It could have been avoided if there was broader user representation in quality risk analysis sessions.
   • So, in future projects, more users would be included in these sessions.
2. Were the test estimations correct? If, for example, estimates had been significantly off the mark, future estimation tasks must address the reasons like inefficient testing behind this wrong estimation.
3. What were the outcomes of cause and effect study of the defects, and the trends displayed by them?
   • For instance, if requests for change were proposed late into the project, affecting quality of analysis and development, Test Manager should investigate trends that imply wrong methods.
   • These trends could be anything like missing a test level that had the potential to identify defects sooner, use of new technologies, change in team members, lack of expertise, etc.
4. Is there any scope for improving test processes?
5. Was there any unexpected deviation from test plan, which should be incorporated in future test planning?

4. Archiving

Test documents like test reports and logs and work products must be archived in configuration management system.

Say, both test and project plans – with clear relationship with version and system used for testing – must be available in planning archive.

The tasks mentioned above are very important but they are usually missed by the testing teams. So, they must be clearly built into the test plan.

One or more of these tasks may be left out due to any of these reasons:

• Untimely reassignment
• Removal of team members
• Demand for resources for other projects
• Team fatigue

To ensure inclusion of these tasks in the test plan, the contract must explicitly mention them.

This concludes the topics which are part of the first chapter from the ISTQB Advanced Level Test Manager syllabus. We will begin the second chapter in the next topic and learn who are the stakeholders in software testing and how to identify them.

Other popular articles:

• What is fundamental test process in software testing?
• How to align software testing activities with product / development lifecycle activities?
• What is Test Planning? What are Work Products in Testing?
• What is Test Execution?
• How Do Software Development Lifecycle Activities & Work Products Affect Testing?