The Benefits of Choosing the Right Test Management Tools

Many organisations have a variety and far ranging set of Test Management Tools like TFS, QC, Bugzilla, FrogBugz, IBM Rational and even the good old Excel spreadsheet makes an occasional appearance. All the tools (except Excel..) are used to store information on when, what and how much testing is to be done along with reporting on the outcome of test execution.

Choosing the right tool can be complicated as the tools, albeit similar, do have a different approach to testing and in doing so have different sets of features. So when choosing a Test Management Tool, you need to look for the following features to allow your team the ability to structure their test process:

• The ability to store requirement documents, test plans, test cases and scripts for ease of defect analysis and triage.
• The ability to maintain and run tests both manually and through automation and to gather execution data.
• The ability to enter findings from defects found and the ability to share this information with the project teams for data and code analysis.
• The ability to check in and out test artifacts (version control) and to monitor test progress and effort spent on testing to provide complete test progress analysis.
• How it will integrate with any other Project Tools in circulation.

Test Management Tools give project teams the ability to both consolidate and structure the test process using one Test Management Tool in the same manner across multiple programmes of work. Thus minimising the start-up and learning curve effort by being able to copy tree structures from one project to another, plus having the ability to navigate quickly to requirements and test artifacts when defects are found.

Additionally, these tools are designed to make the management of testing easier and to allow cross team visibility along with giving traceability and auditability across the projects whilst still being easy to plan and execute and maintain tests.

If you require help in determining which Test Management Tool is best for your organisation or want to get the best out of your existing Tool, then do contact nFocus Testing for a consultation.