A software project Test plan is a document that describes the objectives, scope, approach, and focus of a software testing effort. The process of preparing a test plan is a useful way to think through the efforts needed to validate the acceptability of a software Product. The completed document will help people outside the test group understand the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of product validation. It should be thorough enough to be useful but not so thorough that no one outside the test group will read it. The following are some of the items that might be included in a test plan, depending on the particular project:

  1. Title
  2. Identification of software including version/release numbers
  3. Revision history of document including authors, dates, approvals
  4. Table of Contents
  5. Purpose of document, intended audience
  6. Objective of testing effort
  7. Software product overview
  8. Relevant related document list, such as requirements, design documents, other test plans, etc.
  9. Relevant standards or legal requirements
  10. Traceability requirements
  11. Relevant naming conventions and identifier conventions
  12. Overall software project organization and personnel/contact-info/responsibilties
  13. Test organization and personnel/contact-info/responsibilities
  14. Assumptions and dependencies
  15. Project risk analysis
  16. Testing priorities and focus
  17. Scope and limitations of testing
  18. Test outline – a decomposition of the test approach by test type, feature, functionality, process, system, module, etc. as applicable
  19. Outline of data input equivalence Classes, boundary value analysis, error classes
  20. Test environment – hardware, operating systems, other required software, data configurations, interfaces to other systems
  21. Test environment validity analysis – differences between the test and production systems and their impact on test validity.
  22. Test environment setup and configuration issues
  23. Software migration processes
  24. Software CM processes
  25. test data setup requirements
  26. Database setup requirements
  27. Outline of system-logging/error-logging/other capabilities, and tools such as screen capture software, that will be used to help describe and Report bugs
  28. Discussion of any specialized software or hardware tools that will be used by testers to help track the cause or source of bugs
  29. Test automation – justification and overview
  30. Test tools to be used, including versions, patches, etc.
  31. Test script/test code maintenance processes and version control
  32. Problem tracking and resolution – tools and processes
  33. Project test metrics to be used
  34. Reporting requirements and testing deliverables
  35. Software entrance and exit criteria
  36. Initial sanity testing period and criteria
  37. Test suspension and restart criteria
  38. Personnel allocation
  39. Personnel pre-training needs
  40. Test site/location
  41. Outside test organizations to be utilized and their purpose, responsibilties, deliverables, contact persons, and coordination issues
  42. Relevant proprietary, classified, security, and licensing issues.
  43. Open issues
  44. Appendix – glossary, acronyms, etc.

All these are not compulsory in a test plan, but these are all can contain in a test plan. What to include and what to exclude is all that depends on the organization and the process they follow.