Tools and techniques for superior

test management
White paper

Table of contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
The need for test management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
What is test management? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
The test management process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
HP Quality Center software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16
 Introduction The need for test
In recent years, the field of application testing has
evolved. The growing complexity of today’s modern management
applications, combined with increased competitive In the world of application development, many
pressures and skyrocketing costs of application failure organizations do not seriously consider testing until
and downtime, have catapulted the need for testing to programming is almost complete. Testing at this phase
new heights. is inadequate in light of increasing demands for
While the pressure to deliver high-quality applications higher software quality and shorter release cycles. As
continues to mount, shrinking development and a result, the role of testing in the application lifecycle
deployment schedules, geographically distributed is changing.
organizations, outsourcing, and high turnover rates for Fueled by competitive pressures, high costs
skilled employees make application testing challenging. of downtime and accelerated development

Faced with the reality of having to do more with less, methodologies, organizations are now beginning
juggling multiple projects and managing diverse and
distributed project teams, many organizations are
adopting test management methodologies and are
turning to automated test management tools to help
centralize, organize, prioritize, and document their
testing efforts.
This white paper explores the challenges and rewards
of test management and provides practical ways to
help you implement an organized and structured
testing process. In addition, this paper discusses
the benefits of HP Quality Center software, which
addresses the need for global test management.
to define their testing plans as they create their
applications. Planning your testing in parallel with
your development provides a key advantage. The
knowledge you apply to the application design can
also apply to your testing strategy.
The application testing strategy is evolving into
a multistage process with its own methodology,
structure, organization, and documentation. Similar
to the development process, a testing process needs
a methodical, building-block approach that includes
your testing requirements, planning, design, execution,
and analysis—to provide coverage, consistency, and
reusability of testing assets.

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Based on a project’s objectives, your test managers
can create a master test plan, which communicates
the testing strategy, priorities and objectives to the
rest of the team. Using the master plan, your testers
can define test requirements or specific testing
goals. Requirements define what needs to be tested
and identify the objectives, such as performance
goals. Once your testers have defined your testing
requirements, they can begin developing testing
procedures that meet and validate your requirements
and run the tests.
The goal of a test management process is to create
one central point of control that is accessible to all
members of the testing team. This central point houses
all testing assets and provides a clear foundation for
the entire testing process—from deciding what needs
to be tested to building tests, running scenarios and
tracking defects. The test management methodology
also supports the analysis of test data and coverage
statistics to provide a clear picture of the application’s
accuracy and quality at each point in its lifecycle.
What is test
management?
Test management is a method of organizing
application test assets and artifacts—such as test
requirements, test plans, test documentation, test
scripts, and test results—to support easy accessibility
and reusability. Its aim is to deliver quality applications
in less time. Test management is firmly rooted in the
concepts of better organization, collaboration and
information sharing. Planning, designing, and running
tests represent a considerable amount of work, but
these efforts are rewarded when all testing assets are
shared by testers, business analysts, developers, and
managers alike, preserved when a tester leaves the
team and reused throughout an application’s lifecycle.
Do it right or do it over—compelling
reasons for test management
Although test project management is widely accepted
as a common practice, most organizations don’t
have a standard process for organizing, managing
and documenting their testing efforts. Often, testing
is conducted as an ad-hoc activity that changes with
every new project.
Testing without following planning and design
standards can result in the creation of tests, designs
and plans that are not repeatable and cannot be
reused for future test iterations.
If you think a testing process is difficult to implement
and even more challenging to enforce and maintain,
consider the cost of redundant work and accidentally
lost and overwritten testing assets. Without a central
point of control and clear, repeatable methodologies,
it’s difficult to keep your testing projects on track
and deliver quality applications on time with
limited resources.
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Without a standard foundation
for test planning, execution and
defect tracking, testing efforts are
non‑repeatable, non-reusable, and
difficult to measure.
Daily builds and numerous tests
The process of releasing a new build every day and
then checking it for consistency, functionality, and
compatibility is becoming increasingly popular not
only in the Web environment, but in any organization
that builds complex, dynamic applications. The sheer
number of tests and versions can make the testing
process overwhelming and nearly impossible to
manage. A well-defined, systematic approach to testing
and a centralized repository for test plans, tests, and
execution results can significantly increase the accuracy
of your tests and add value to frequent builds.
Managing changing requirements
Complete requirements-based testing helps a new
application meet your users’ needs. Ideally, you
would test each requirement at least once and some
requirements several times. But constant time and
resource constraints make it extremely difficult to
conduct comprehensive testing of all requirements. As
a result, your testers must prioritize the requirements
that they test. And requirements undergo frequent
revisions and changes, which your tests should reflect.
Without a test management process that ties test plans
to application requirements and lets you track changes
in requirements to test cases—and vice versa—it’s
nearly impossible to design tests that verify that your business outcomes
application contains the functionality that you require. Some IT organizations regard testing as a bug
Global testing
Globalization is affecting testing, like most other IT
operations. Even small companies often distribute their them to developers. Testing should focus on verifying
testing teams throughout a country or the world. In
addition, as part of cost-saving measures and higher
availability of qualified testers, some companies
are turning to an outsourced testing model. It’s not
uncommon to have multiple development and testing
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teams, composed of in-house and outsourced staff,
spread around the world, working on the same project.
The Internet makes communication among these
teams easier, but how can you prevent members of
your distributed team from accidentally deleting each
other’s files or working on duplicate defects? Without
a clearly defined testing process and an easy-to-use,
intuitive collaboration method, a geographically
distributed, “virtual” testing team likely results in
greater problems and complexity than benefits.
Many tests, many projects
Effective testing requires a systematic process. When
your testing team manages multiple projects, each
with its own cycles and priorities, it’s easy to lose
focus. Almost no organization can dedicate a testing
team to one development project. At best, a testing
team is part of the development group for a particular
product. Additionally, you need to validate multiple
functional areas, builds and baselines, different
platforms and environments, and a vast number of
integrations. To track multiple test cases, your testers
need a process that allows them to manage multiple
projects and clearly define the objectives of each one.
More than bug tracking—meet
tracking activity. It’s true: your testing team’s primary
responsibility is to find defects. However, a testing
process is more than recording bugs and passing
that the application’s design and functionality meet
your business requirements and your users’ needs.
To achieve those goals successfully, a testing process
requires clearly defined system specifications and
application business rules.
Early in the lifecycle
Early problem detection can be as much as ten times
less expensive than finding issues during production,
suggesting that testing and development begin
simultaneously. However, to implement testing earlier
in the lifecycle, your testers need a clearly defined set
of goals and priorities to help them better understand
system design, requirements, and testing objectives. A
well-defined, structured and intuitive test management
process can help them meet your testing goals and
enhance the quality of your applications.
The test management
process
The basic principles for test management are the same,
regardless of the underlying platform or how you write
your tests. Test management begins with gathering and
documenting your testing requirements and continues
through designing and developing your tests, running
the tests—manual and automated, functional and
load—and analyzing application defects.
The testing process is not linear, and it differs
depending on your organization’s practices and
methodologies. This section delves deeper into each
phase of the test management process and explores
what it means to have an effective method for
organizing, documenting, prioritizing, and analyzing
your entire testing program.
Requirements management
The testing process begins with defining clear
and complete application requirements that
can be tested. Developing and managing these
requirements are critical for developing and testing
your software applications and should reflect your
organization’s needs.
To use a metaphor, a team of architects needs
to consult with the homeowners and thoroughly
document their requirements before designing and
building a house. Otherwise, the homeowners may
end up with a house that completely differs from what
they envisioned. Building a house without requirements
is difficult enough, but the problem becomes greater
when dealing with software applications, which are
intangible, complex, and constantly changing.
Research shows that more than 30 percent of all
software projects fail before completion and that
this failure is largely due to ambiguous, poorly
worded, and badly defined requirements. All too
often, requirements are neglected in the testing effort,
leading to a chaotic process in which your testers
fix what they can and accept that they will not verify
certain functionality.
You achieve quality only through testing the
application against its requirements. Although unit
testing of individual components may be sufficient
during the development process, you need to test the
entire application based on its requirements so that
the application functions as expected. Of the many
types of requirements, functional and performance
requirements most often apply to the testing process.
Functional requirements help validate that the
application contains specific functionality and should
be derived directly from the use cases that developers
use to create the application.
Performance requirements include the performance
standards and specifications, such as transaction
response times or maximum number of users,
identified by the project team. These requirements—
also referred to as service level objectives
(SLOs)—increase the likelihood that the application
can scale to the expected number of users and
provide a positive user experience.
Both functional and performance requirements give
the testing team a clear, concise, and functional
blueprint with which to develop test cases. Most
software testing managers agree that it’s impossible
to test everything, even in a rather simple application.
To test every feature and functional permutation, you
may need to develop thousands, if not millions, of test
cases, which is unrealistic, given time-to-market goals
and other pressures. Requirements-based testing is one
way to help you prioritize your testing effort.
You can group requirements according to how
critical they are to your business success. You must
test extensively the requirements that affect the core
functionality of your application and have the highest
impact on the business if they are not addressed.
You can address the not-so-critical requirements with
minimal testing effort or later in the lifecycle.
For example, if you test a new release of a mature
product with only a few functional changes, your
testing effort should concentrate on the modified
or enhanced areas. These changes are usually
well-documented in the development or marketing
specification documents, and you can derive the
testing requirements from them.
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The test management process lets
you organize, document, prioritize,
and analyze your organization’s
entire testing effort.

Recognizing the importance of requirements-
based development and testing, testing solutions
now include a variety of tools designed to aid the
creation, traceability, and management of application
requirements. Some of these enterprise requirements
tools are sophisticated and complex. Others offer
basic functionality designed to assist in creating,
storing, and documenting requirements. The key to
selecting the appropriate tool is the functionality you
need. Most organizations still use word-processing
tools or spreadsheets to track requirements; however,
commercial tools designed for requirements
management are a better choice if you want a solid,
flexible, requirements-based testing process. A solution
that is integrated into your test management system
enables full traceability of requirements to tests and
defects throughout the application lifecycle.
Requirements-based testing helps keep your testing
effort on track—even when priorities shift, resources
become tight or the time for testing runs out.
Requirements-based testing validates that you are
focusing your QA testing time and resources on the
highest priority, highest risk requirements.
Planning tests
Comprehensive planning is critical, even with short
testing cycles. Planning your tests and designing your
applications simultaneously gives you a complete
set of tests that covers each function the application
is designed to perform. If you do not address test
planning until later in the application lifecycle, much of
the design knowledge is lost, and testers will need to
return to the analysis stage in order to recreate what
had been done before.
During a test planning phase, your testing team
identifies test-creation standards and guidelines,
selects hardware and software for the test
environment, assigns roles and responsibilities, defines
the test schedule and sets procedures for running,
controlling and measuring the testing process.
The test plan itself contains test designs, test
procedures, naming conventions, and other test
attributes. Use the planning phase to define which
tests are needed, how to execute these tests and the
risks and contingencies that require planning.
Establish the rules
Your testers don’t need overly bureaucratic
processes to slow them down, but ambiguities and
a lack of clearly defined procedures can make
testing a bottleneck for product deliverables. You
should establish rules for keeping test logs and
documentation, assigning roles within the team,
agreeing on naming conventions for tests and defects
and defining the procedure for tracking progress
against project goals.
Set up your test environment
You need to create a test environment to support all
testing activities. Consider all issues that have long
lead times as early in the testing process as possible.
The planning phase is the time to complete hardware
and software procurements, network installation, test
environment design, and special arrangements that
may be necessary during the actual testing phase.

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Define test procedures
During the planning stage, your testers determine
whether tests are going to be manual or automated. If
the test is automated, your testers need to understand
which tools to use for automation, and estimate what
techniques and skills are needed for the effective use
of these tools. While test automation is mandatory
for many organizations, most companies still use
manual testing. Regardless of the type of testing you
use—manual or automated—you need robust test
management processes.
Develop your test design
You can represent your test design as a sequence
of steps for executing a test (as done in manual
testing) or as a collection of algorithms and code that
support more sophisticated, complex tests. During test
planning, your testers create a detailed description of
each test and identify the types of data or ranges of
data that the tests require.
Map your test data
You need to map the requirements for your test data
against your test procedures. Your testing team must
understand what types of data they need to support
each type of test, and how to obtain or generate
this data.
Design your test architecture
The test architecture helps your testers understand the
test building blocks and assists them in developing the
actual tests. The test architecture helps you plan for
data dependencies, map the workflow between tests
and identify common scripts that may be reused for
future testing.
Communicate your test plan
Once you create the test cases, you must create
a master test plan and communicate it to the rest
of the organization—specifically project leaders,
developers and marketing personnel—letting them
know what your testing group will be testing. In this
way, more people in your organization have visibility
into the project and can add their input, questions or
comments before the actual testing begins. The test
plan can also provide visibility into testing projects for
your executives. Having access to organized, detailed
plan data gives your executives the confidence that
they are working with a professional quality assurance
(QA) organization and are getting value from their
technology and human resource investments.
Running your tests
After addressing test design and development issues,
your testing team can start running tests. To test the
complete application, your testers need to perform
various types of testing—functional, regression,
load, unit, and integration—each with its own set of
requirements, schedules, and procedures.
You set up the test environment in the planning phase,
so at this time, your testers can view the available
hardware and choose which tests to run on which
systems. Typically, applications are tested on different
operating systems, different browser versions or other
configurations. During the test-run phase, your testers
can set up groups of systems to increase the efficiency
of your lab resources.
Scheduling automated tests is another way to optimize
the use of your lab resources as well as save your
testers time by running multiple tests simultaneously
across multiple systems on the network. You can
schedule tests to run unattended, overnight or when
a system is in least demand for other tasks. Using
automated tests also makes the scripts more reusable
and easier to maintain by letting you create more
modular tests and schedule them in a certain sequence.
Having an organized, documented process not only
helps your automated tests. It also helps make your
manual tests more accurate by providing your testers
with a clearly defined procedure that specifies the
tasks they need to perform at each step in the manual
testing. For both manual and automated tests, your
testers must keep a complete history of all test runs,
creating audit trails to help trace the history of the tests
and test runs.
Create your test sets
A popular way to manage multiple tests is to group
them into test sets, according to a business process,
environment or feature. For example, you can group
all tests designed to verify the log-in process under
the “Log-in” test set. You can assign individual tests,
both manual and automated, to test sets to help
your testers thoroughly cover the functional areas of
your application.
Set your execution logic
To verify application functionality and usability,
your tests must realistically emulate your end-users’
behavior. You should follow the predefined logic, such
as running certain tests after other tests have passed,
failed or completed. For example, a user logs into the
system, enters a new order and then exits the system.
To emulate this simple business process, you should
run the tests in the same sequence: log-in, insert order
and log-out. You should set the execution logic rules
prior to executing the actual tests.
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 Manage your test resources
After setting up and configuring your test environment,
your testers define what tests or groups of tests should
run on which systems. You can set up your hardware to
test a particular operating system, platform or browser.
Additionally, managing test lab resources by assigning
tests to individual systems helps to use your hardware
and network resources efficiently and effectively.
Run your manual tests
Running manual tests involves manually interacting
with an application then recording actual results
against expected outcomes. While some manual tests
are routine, they are an essential part of the testing
procedure, allowing your testers to verify functionality
and conditions that automated tools cannot handle.
Schedule automated test runs
After developing automated tests and assigning them
to host machines, your testing team needs to create
an execution schedule. Scheduling is another way to
avoid conflicts with hardware and system resources.
You can schedule tests to run unattended, overnight or
when a system is in least demand for other tasks.
Analyze your test-run results
When your tests execute, your testers uncover
application inconsistencies, broken functionality,
missing features and other problems commonly
referred to as “bugs” or “defects.” The next step is to
view the list of failed tests and determine what caused
a test to fail. If your tester determines that the test
failed due to an application defect, you need to report
this defect into the defect tracking system for further
investigation, correction, and retesting.
Managing issues
Managing or “tracking” issues and defects is a
critical step in the testing process. As today’s systems
become more complex and mission critical, so does
the severity of the defects. A well-defined method
for defect management benefits not just the testing
team. Developers, managers, customer support, QA,
and even beta customers can effectively contribute
to the testing process by having access to an open,
easy‑to‑use and functional defect tracking system. The
key to making a good defect reporting and resolution
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process is to set up the defect workflow and assign
permission rules. In this way, your testers can define
how a lifecycle of a defect should progress and who
has the authority to open a new defect, who can
change its status to “fixed” and under what conditions
the defect can be closed. You should also maintain a
complete history and audit trail throughout the defect’s
lifecycle. Extra time spent on documenting the defect
and its history is often rewarded with easier analysis,
shorter resolution times and better application quality.
Analyzing defects helps your managers make
“go/no-go” decisions about application deployment.
By analyzing defect statistics, your testers can analyze
your applications and determine how many defects
they have and other related factors, such as their status,
severity, priority, and age. By giving different team
members access to defect information, your testers can
greatly improve communication in your organization
and share the current status of your applications.
Agree on a naming convention
Effective defect management relies upon
communication across the different parties involved
in the process. Before you establish reporting
mechanisms, your testing team needs to set the rules,
such as defining the severity of bugs, and agree
on what information must be included in the defect
report. For example, many testing organizations
categorize defects as follows:
• Cosmetic or user interface
• Inconsistency
• Loss of functionality
• System crash
• Loss of data
Cosmetic and inconsistency defects are the easiest
to report and address. Although they make the
application more difficult to use, they don’t affect
the application’s functionality. Defects that result
in loss of functionality are more severe and more
urgently require correction. Defects that cause the
system to crash or lose data are commonly called
“showstoppers.” You must document these types of
defects as thoroughly as possible and correct them
before your application goes live.
Extra time spent on documenting
a defect and its history is often
rewarded by easier analysis,
shorter resolution times and better
application quality.

Establish reporting procedures or project manager must prioritize them. If your

For good defect reporting, you need to supply
your developers with the information they need
to reproduce and fix a problem. A defect report
generally includes a summary and detailed description
of the problem, version and system configuration
information, the steps needed to reproduce
the problem and any relevant information and
attachments that help illustrate the issue.
Set permission rules
Each step in the test management process requires
different access privileges. This is especially true in
managing defects, as defect information helps your
managers make “go/no-go” decisions regarding
application release. Before the testing begins, your
testers must decide which team members have
permission to report, open or re-open defects,
adjust status and determine that a bug has been
fixed and is closed.
Establish the process flow
After you find a defect, submit it into the defect
repository. A developer should review it and
determine whether the reported issue is indeed
a defect. If so, the developer assigns it a “new”
status. As few development organizations have the
bandwidth to repair all known defects, a developer
development group is pressured to release the next
version of the application, a project manager can
decide to fix only “Showstopper” defects and correct
others after the release cycle. This process flow
creates an accountability chain, which defines who
owns which defects and the status of the corrections.
Retest repairs
After a known defect is repaired, you need to retest
the application to see that the changes have taken
effect and that the correction did not introduce
additional problems and unexpected side effects.
If the defect does not appear when you retest the
application, you can change the status to “closed.”
If the problem persists or the correction introduced
additional problems, re-open the defect and repeat
the cycle.
Analyze defects
Analyzing defects is critical. With analysis, your
testers can understand the application being tested
and view the number of known defects and related
information, such as their status, severity, priority, and
age. Through defect analysis, your management can
make an informed decision whether an application is
ready for deployment.

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Figure 1. Comprehensive testing.
HP Quality Center links test
cases to testing requirements
and traces the testing process.
HP Quality Center
software
HP Quality Center software is Web-enabled,
test management software that supports the test
management process in one powerful, scalable,
and flexible solution. It combines an integrated suite
of role-based modules, a business dashboard and
an open, scalable, and extensible foundation—all
designed to optimize and automate key quality
activities, including requirements, test management
and defects tracking, functional testing and regression
testing, and manual and business-process testing.
Seamless integration among these modules provides
smooth information flow among the different stages of
the testing process. With HP Quality Center, you get
enterprise-level functionality that meets the needs of
the most sophisticated application testing projects.
Global, Web-based test management
HP Quality Center is global test management software.
By being Web-enabled, it supports communication
and collaboration among distributed testing teams—
whether they are located in different parts of the world and user-defined fields and propagating them
or separated by organizational boundaries.
10
In today’s organizations, different groups are involved
in the testing process—managers, developers, business
analysts, customer support, in-house and offshore
teams and even customers. By using a browser, all
these groups can easily access testing information and
collaborate seamlessly. In addition, HP Quality Center
can configure user groups and set up permissions
to help maintain access privileges and preserve
information integrity so that users see only the tests
and assets that are relevant to them. This functionality
is particularly beneficial for offshore testing projects.
The Web-based software can also synchronize users
through version upgrades or installing new modules.
As a result, users no longer need to go offline during
upgrades. They simply refresh the browser and
synchronize with the rest of the organization.
Cross-project customization
Process standardization is a necessity for
enterprise‑wide reporting, asset sharing and reuse.
HP Quality Center Premier allows you to enforce
standardized processes and best practices by
centrally creating templates with mandatory workflows
automatically across projects.
Requirements Management quickly extract information on what percentage of
the requirements, the tests address and what is the
The Requirements Management feature in HP Quality
status of those tests. They can also extract information
Center links requirements to requirements, requirements
on how many requirements were rejected in the
to test cases and requirements to defects, providing
review process and need to be repaired and which
traceability throughout the testing process. This lets
requirements have “urgent” priority and need to be
users easily see what percentage of application
validated as soon as possible.
functional requirements are covered by tests, how
many of these tests have run and how many have With HP Quality Center, you can save all filters,
passed or failed. reports, and graphs as “Favorites” for public or private
access. Only the person who creates private favorite
Developing testing requirements starts with reviewing
views can access them. Public favorites, however, can
the documentation for the application being tested,
be used by the entire team. For example, a manager
including marketing and business requirements
needs to have updated information on the status of all
documents, system requirements specifications and
testing requirements for a particular application for a
design documents. You can use these documents to
weekly meeting. She only needs to create the report
gain a thorough understanding of the application
once and save the filter under “Favorites”. From that
being tested and to determine the testing scope: test
point on, HP Quality Center automatically updates her
goals, objectives, and strategies.
view with new information, and the manager gets an
Based on the testing scope and goals, Business updated status of all requirements every week.
Analysts and QA managers can begin developing
HP Quality Center also helps organizations maintain
requirements, log them into the HP Quality Center
an audit trail by providing the history of any changes
requirements tree and assign responsibilities for
made to a particular requirement. This helps preserve
specific areas. The requirements tree is a graphical
information integrity and allows your testers to trace
representation of your organization’s specific
events throughout the requirement lifecycle—from
requirements and displays the hierarchical relationship
initial creation through changes to its status, priority or
among the different requirements. Each requirement
test coverage.
in the tree is described in detail, such as the reviewed
status, priority and creation date, and includes any
Aligning testing priorities based on risk
relevant attachments.
HP Quality Center provides a unique risk-based
Requirements Management provides two ways to link quality management module to allow you to
your requirements to tests: objectively assess and prioritize the highest priority,
• Your testers can automatically generate tests based highest risk requirements so you can optimize your
on application requirements. Or, if they have an testing effort based on business risk. Risk-based quality
existing test plan, they can link requirements to tests management allows you to evaluate both the business
that are associated with defects. In this way, your dimensions of risk, by requirement and by requirement
testers can track their testing needs at all stages of type, through a set of objective questions about risk
the testing process. If a testing requirement changes, such as: number of users, availability requirements,
they can immediately identify which tests and defects criticality of the functionality to the business. A
are affected, and who is responsible. similar evaluation is conducted around technical
complexity and technical risk, resulting in an objective
• Your testers can group and sort requirements in
characterization of risk from both the business and
the tree, monitor task allocation and the progress
technical perspective. The outcome assists you in
of requirements and generate detailed reports
defining the right focus for the development and
and graphs.
validation effort by understanding the priorities for
At any stage in your testing process, HP Quality requirements and their associated risks. The weighted
Center can help your testers generate graphs and priorities give you the ability to make tradeoffs and
reports quickly to gain accurate status information direct activities and resources toward the right set of
about the tested application. For example, once development, testing, and validation tasks based on
you complete your requirements, your testers can the amount of risk the business is willing to tolerate.

11
Figure 2. Graphically view your
test plans.
A test-plan tree in HP Quality
Center is a graphical
representation of your test plan.

Planning your tests
The test-plan tree in HP Quality Center is a graphical
representation of your test plan. It is a hierarchical
list of tests, organized according to topic, and
describes the set of tests needed to meet your quality
requirements. Your testers can also associate a test
with specific defects. This is useful, for example, when
you create a new test for a known defect. Through
association, your testers can determine whether the
test should run based on the status of the defect.
HP Quality Center allows your testers to link each test in
the test-plan tree with a requirement in the requirements
tree. By defining the requirements for a test, your testers As with reports and graphs in the requirements tab,
can track the relationship among the tests in the test
plan and the original testing requirements.
an automated test based on the design steps. Your
testers only need an automated testing tool, such as
HP QuickTest Professional software, to record the
business process and complete the test.
Before you execute your tests, you should review the
test plan to determine how well it meets the goals that
your testers defined at the beginning of the testing
process. They can analyze their test plan by generating
customizable reports and graphs. For example, they
can create a report that displays design step data
for each test in a test-plan tree. They can also use this
report to help determine their test design priorities.
testers can save their test plan views as “Favorites”
and access this information at any time.

For each test, HP Quality Center helps your testers
create test steps that describe which operations to
perform, what specific areas to check and which
results to expect. After your testers define the test
steps, they can decide whether to perform the test
manually or to automate it.
In addition to supporting both manual and automated
tests, HP Quality Center supports the migration from
manual to automated tests. If your testers automate
a test, HP Quality Center creates a template for
If your planning information is already stored in an
application, such as Microsoft ® Word or Excel, your
testers can reuse this information and import it into
HP Quality Center, preserving your investment and
eliminating the need for redundant planning efforts.
Additionally, HP Quality Center allows your testers to
create attachments so they can add information, such
as design documents or feature specifications, to a
specific test.

12
Figure 3. Run tests locally or
remotely.
With HP Quality Center, tests can
run locally or remotely on any
available system on the network.
Asset Sharing and Reuse
The new HP Quality Center Premier product supports
sharing and reuse of asset libraries across projects.
Sharable libraries allow you to manage initiatives
with multiple applications to verify that changes to
one application do not negatively impact another
application. Specific changes can be applied to the
shared assets for each project while allowing the
library to maintain its integrity.
Running your tests
The Test Lab feature in HP Quality Center helps your
testing team manage the scheduling and running of
many different types of tests. To help organize the
tests that need to run, HP Quality Center uses the
concept of a “test set.” A test set is a group of tests
in a project database, designed to achieve specific
testing goals. Test sets can include all tests that
validate specific functionality, such as a log-in process,
or that verify an application works with a particular
version of a browser.
With HP Quality Center, you can add tests to a test
set from the planning tree by dragging and dropping.
Your testers can also create a filter inside the planning
tree and export it into a test set for all tests that satisfy
specified criteria.
In addition, your testers can define the execution
conditions and control the execution of automated
tests in a test set. They can set conditions and schedule
the date and time for executing automated tests. They
can also set the sequence in which to execute the tests.
For example, to verify a simple business process
in which the user logs into a system, creates a
reservation, enters payment information and logs out,
you can create four modular tests: “Log-in,” “Create
Reservation,” “Insert Payment” and “Log-out.” To
emulate this simple business process, you can arrange
the four tests sequentially, beginning with “Log-in” and
followed by “Create Reservation,” “Insert Payment”
and “Log-out.”
You can also define the execution conditions. In this
example, you can set the “Create Reservation” test to
run only after the “Log-in” test passes. The “Log-out”
test, on the other hand, can run regardless of whether
the previous test passes or fails. For example, you
can set “Log-out” to run after “Insert Payment” has
finished, regardless of the result.
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Figure 4. Analyze application
defects.
The Defect Management module
in HP Quality Center logs,
tracks, manages, and analyzes
application defects.
With HP Quality Center, your testers can run tests
locally or remotely on any available system on the
network. Through the Host Manager feature, they
can define the systems for running tests and group
them by task (functional or load testing), operating
system (Windows® or UNIX®), browser type and
version (Netscape or Internet Explorer) or by any other
specification or configuration.
HP Quality Center is tightly integrated with other
HP quality management offerings. You can also use
its open API to run tests using a third-party testing
tool. Your testers can schedule automated tests to
run unattended, either overnight or when the test lab
systems are in least demand for other tasks. Using its
scheduling mechanism, HP Quality Center invokes
the automated testing tool, runs your tests and reports
results back into the central repository.
Versioning and Baselining
Change management capabilities are provided
through version control for requirements, tests, test
scripts, business components, and flows. Versioning
allows distributed teams to collaborate and manage
multiple versions of test assets, while providing an audit
history of changes throughout the project lifecycle.
14
Baselining allows you to capture a group of
requirements, tests or tests assets at strategic points
in the project lifecycle to mark specific milestones.
You can compare baselines to assess the impact of
changes and enable rollback of assets, if required.
Managing issues
Information about issues or defects is critical for
determining the status of an application and deciding
whether it is ready for deployment. The Defect
Management feature in HP Quality Center logs,
tracks, manages, and analyzes application defects.
Different types of users—testers, project managers,
developers, beta customers, and many others—can
use it to enter defects directly into the database.
An effective defect tracking process is firmly rooted in
the concepts of well-defined workflow and permission
rules. Your testers can define how a defect should
progress through its lifecycle—from initial problem
detection through solving the problem and verifying
the correction—as well as set permission rules and
access privileges for any member of the organization.
Using customization options, you can establish the
workflow rules that are most appropriate for your
process. For example, a defect must start its cycle
with the status “new.” It cannot be closed without a
QA manager reviewing it first, then it transfers to the
development team. A developer either rejects the
defect or corrects the problem and assigns a new
status, “fixed.” The defect remains open until the
project manager reviews the corrections and changes
the status to “closed.” By setting the workflow and
permission rules for different members of the team,
you can configure HP Quality Center to reflect your
process flow and organizational requirements.
Share customizable analysis tools
Based on organizational roles, you can restrict
individuals from viewing certain records in the defect
tracking process. For example, you can restrict some
developers to viewing only defects that have been
assigned to them. Similarly, you can block beta
customers who have access to the defect database
from viewing the “target fix date” for any defect.
Your testers can attach information to a defect, such
as a description file or a view of the application
being tested, to help illustrate a problem. To further
help development reproduce the issue, your testers
can attach information about all system components,
such as memory, operating system or color settings.
Attached as a text file, all this data can help reproduce aggregate quality metrics across projects to provide a
the problem and accelerate problem resolution.
The filters, reports, graphs, and favorites in the Defect
Management feature in HP Quality Center can
help assess whether an application is ready to be
deployed by answering the following questions. Are
your testers finding more defects than they are fixing?
Are your developers overloaded with too many urgent
bugs assigned to them? Are there more defects in the
current version of the application than in the previous
release? All of this information is available through the
customizable analysis tools and can be shared across
the organization.
In HP Quality Center Premier product, developers
can also share defects across projects, reducing risk
by helping them find, prioritize, and resolve defects
sooner. A centralized defect repository also enables
sharing of aggregated defect status and trends
across projects.
Report and graph your quality
progress
HP Quality Center has an integrated dashboard
module to centralize quality reporting and enable
real‑time decisions based on application status.
HP Quality Center can also export a report into
Microsoft Excel, allowing your end-users to perform
endless data manipulation.
HP Quality Center Premier also allows you to
holistic view of quality status, reduce risk and enable
more informed release decisions at the enterprise level.
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 Summary
The application testing process is unique for every
organization. However, many testing teams follow
a similar methodology that includes identifying
the functional requirements, creating a test plan,
running tests, and tracking application defects. This
approach to testing requires powerful software that
can promote communication and collaboration among
teams, while adding organization and structure to the
testing process. HP offers global test management
with HP Quality Center. By integrating requirements
management with test planning, test scheduling, test
execution, and defect tracking in a single Web‑based
application, HP Quality Center streamlines and
accelerates the testing process.

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© Copyright 2007, 2009 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein
is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the
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4AA1-2314ENW Rev. 1, August 2009