The following article highlights the importance of Test Closure Reports after completing the testing of new software developments and its impact on the final quality of the product.
Introduction
During software development cycle and before the final commercialisation of the product, it is very important to create, review, and deliver a Test Closure Report after the testing of the new feature/product has finished. Test Closure Reports have proved to be an opportunity for representatives of the teams involved in the software development process to have a look and raise their opinions on the final quality status of the product.
What is a Test Closure Report?
Test Closure Reports contain a detailed written record of the Test Plan execution, results obtained, bugs found, fixes for the bugs, and comments about pending issues to be discussed, if any. They also can contain a brief technical explanation of the new feature or product, a summary of the areas covered in the test and acceptance criteria.
Test Closure Reports usually contain results images and captures of the interface of the product during execution.
Who should have access and review the Test Closure Report?
QA Engineers, in general, should be the persons that creates and delivers the Test Closure Report, they are the main responsible to record the information related with the test, results, and any concern or risk identified. They have the first “user experience” with the product, and share with other the Test Report. QA Managers, also, can add ideas and follow up the Report from the beginning, they usually have a general and broader view of the Quality of all the products developed in a project, and at the end will be the ones that have the key statistics and metrics at the time of the release.
Furthermore, other team representatives should have access, review, and provide feedback on the Test Closure Report. Portfolio Manager and Product Champion have a key voice assessing the results of the testing, because they are in continuous contact with the clients and have better knowledge of the business needs. An finally, but not least, the Engineers who wrote the code of the software or new feature, and Engineering Development Manager should review the Report and be available to answer any question about the intended behaviour of the software, code limitation, cross-product impact, etc.
It could be a good idea to call a meeting to discuss the Test Closure Report with all the key people from the teams involved in the development of the software, like Business representatives, Software Engineers, and of course the QA team.
With the inputs of all these experts, an agreed decision can be made, in terms of the current quality status of the product and readiness to be released.
Don’t ignore the Test Closure Report
Due to the workload and pace of the development cycle, and mainly on agile developments, it can be easy to forget or give less priority to the test Closure Report. This can lead to unseen potential quality issues, and hence to the detriment on the quality of the commercial product. QA Engineers and QA Managers should make sure that the Test Closure Report is created and reviewed properly, in this way all the perspectives and point of views related with the software development are considered, and is possible to know accurately, in advance, the status and quality of the product before commercial release.
Conclusion
Test Closure Reports are a key aspect on ensuring the final quality of the software tested, is a very important opportunity to review results, follow up on actions needed, assessing and take action on potential risks, before the final release of the product.
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