I'm currently reviewing some test case artifacts for various project teams as standardized by our organization. However, I'm a bit appalled to find that a lot of content is being captured in documents and is leading to wasted effort.
What are some lean ways to capture/document test-case descriptions that you have seen being applied successfully keeping 'everyone happy' (i.e., no one complains about this & that missing).
Currently here's an outline of what we capture just for a single test case:
- Test Case ID
- Test Item
- Test Priority
- Pre-conditions
- Post-conditions
- Input Specifications
- Expected Output Specifications
- Pass/Fail Criteria
- Assumptions and Constraints Dependencies
- Traceability
Of course test-case ID/item are autogenerated for the most part. But that is still a lot to capture. We capture our requirements as user-stories but we still need some detail for our test cases. I'm just worried that the detail may be just too much. There are other details too, like type of test case, time/effort estimate etc.,
So what are some suggestions of making test-case documentation 'lean' to eliminate/reduce this documentation overhead? (Just capturing the test cases on the back of story cards is not acceptable for our organization. Tools/format suggestions are both welcome. Basically ideas to help reduce the burden of documenting test cases.)