What is Software Test Estimation?
Before understanding the definition of Test Estimation, let’s understand Estimation and how familiar you are with it. Everyone does estimations in his/her real life e.g. You will try to figure out – At what time you need to wake up in the morning so that you can reach office at 7 am or 8 am or 9 am OR to attend an early morning meeting. Other example can be…How long will it take you to reach someone’s house? What should be your monthly expenses, what should be the weekly or monthly loan repayment amount without putting undue pressure on your life style?
So there are various instances where you are always trying to figure out the estimation factor in different terms.
Let’s go to the Test Estimation. As discussed in the examples…In a layman’s term – “How long will it take”. Moving on to the formal definition – It is the process of finding an approximate value in Hrs or Days or sometimes in months to complete the testing activities in a software development life cycle. It could be a high level or detailed, which we are going to discuss later in the course.
It is required to communicate the testing effort (Time or Cost) to the Project stakeholders. Therefore, before commencing testing activities, it is critical to have testing estimates to formulate a testing plan and further communication to the Project Manager to fit into the overall Project Plan.
Several industry studies have reported that fewer than half of software projects finish within their allotted schedules and budgets. It tells us that mostly people struggle with the Estimations and it’s an important area to address. Let’s discuss the various benefits of doing Test Estimations.
Benefits of Test Estimation:
-
- Identifying the number of resources required to meet the project timelines: It’s always a critical area to identify the number of testing resources to be allocated to the project. This would help in further identification of shortfall in the resources availability, in case there are not too many resources available.
-
- Helps in identifying/executing the Testing priorities, in case project has shorter time frames: This is relevant to the Risk based technique, which we are going to discuss later in detail. Let’s assume that your project has less time to market and you cannot complete your testing within the project timelines. So, you can target to complete the prioritised testing areas to meet the timelines and justifying the testing effort. I’ve observed this scenario in number of projects, as senior management board or Project stakeholders are always in a hurry to get the Project to market.
-
- More accurate scheduling: You can plan your testing schedule in a better accurate way if you know your timelines, work effort and expected start and end dates.
-
- Better planning, execution and monitoring of tasks: Once you have Testing estimates, you can monitor the overall tasks (like Test Preparation, Test Execution) and can track their progress. Moreover, you can take the corrective action in vase there are any deviations.
-
- Realising results more confidently: It’s like seeing into the future and making sure to meet those timelines. Meeting the planned estimates will give you a more confidence. The more you do, more you learn and will become more confident in producing the Test estimates and achieving the related test targets.
-
- Forming the foundation of good management credibility: Once you start producing and meeting your timelines with less variance, you will start showing your expertise in this process and will earn the confidence of your senior management.