Find Your Tool
Learning Objectives
After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:
- Explain the purpose of a testing tool.
- Describe the functions of a testing tool.
- Describe the testing tools for different levels of maturity.
The Need for a Test Management Tool
As teams plan, implement, and measure their testing efforts, they need a tool to track them. At their simplest, test management tools organize testing data. This becomes particularly important as testing becomes a shared responsibility and expands to more phases of the Software Development Lifecycle.
Teams that store their activities in various locations risk duplicating effort, losing documentation, creating confusion, and limiting their own growth. However, with a tool to centralize their efforts, teams can better streamline processes, manage resources, create cohesion, and maximize their potential. To offer these benefits, a test management tool needs to serve various functions.
Functions of a Test Management Tool
Documentation
Planning is an important piece of test management. Whether waterfall or agile with development, most teams use some level of documentation. Artifacts such as test plans or test scripts are best stored in a central location so that they are available to any team member.
Data Storage, Tracking, and Visualization
As testing is executed, teams need a tool to make the results of the tests accessible and easy to understand. On top of that, test management is an entire process that should be monitored and analyzed. Reports, charts, and dashboards help teams get an informed quick view into their test cases and systems.
Customization
The tool should also be a compass to point teams in the right direction for their quality journey. Because everyone’s path is unique, the tool that guides them should adapt to their specific needs. Therefore, features such as reports and dashboards should not only be available but also customizable.
Test Orchestration and Pipeline Integration
Powerful test management tools can orchestrate continuous testing as an automated process. They communicate with other tools to trigger tests and deployments and to receive results from other testing applications. This means teams can manage their full end-to-end testing lifecycle and collect data on the executions, passes, failures, test cases, run times, errors, and more. This gives everyone on the team easy access to any issues across the entire development cycle.
Tools for Testing Maturity
Just as context helps teams decide the level of test management and documentation needed for their project, it will also help them determine the right tool. This is often informed by the maturity of the team. A team with several types of testers has different needs from a team with one manual tester. Let’s see what a team at each stage might use.
Maturity Stage | Tool Need |
|---|---|
Early maturity | This team uses a tool to store basic information and processes. Instead of a test management-specific tool, they might opt to capture testing activities in a project management tool that they are already using in other areas. |
Mid-maturity | This team often stores and analyzes data in a separate tool just for test management. They might start with word processing or spreadsheet applications to log activities before moving on to one that is more sophisticated. |
Mature teams | This team needs a tool that serves as a quality hub to provide a view into what’s happening both in the tests and around them. The tool for this team serves as a quality hub as it integrates with other tools and processes. |
Although the full capabilities of a tool that’s a quality hub might not be implemented with less mature teams, it’s a worthy option to consider for all levels because it has the potential to grow with teams. Rather than starting over with a new tool each time they outgrow one, teams can begin with a tool that can scale with them. Ultimately, regardless of the tool, customization is important so that teams can tailor it to their needs at any stage in the process.