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Introduction

1. Introduction

Hello, and welcome to the ISTQB Advanced Level Test Manager course. As I said in the introductory video, after the great success of the ISTQB Agile certification course, I was inspired to record this course so that it is available to all aspirant testers out there to take up the certification of Advanced Level Test Manager. So let's have a look at the details of the course. What does this certification offer? There are three separate syllables offered when it comes to the advanced level. They are test managers, test analysts, and technical test analysts. The term "test manager" refers to someone who manages everything related to testing, including processes, resources, and projects. Advanced Level Test Analyst talks about what a testercan do more and be more useful to theorganization, how he can be helpful in terms ofimplementing the processes, in terms of implementing new ideas,in terms of implementing new testing methodologies. And when it comes to technical test analysts, it's all about automation. So, why should you take the Advanced Level course? Well, there are three to four points over here I would like to convey. When you have Advanced Level Certification, it gives you an identity among the crowd. It positively impacts the salary. Of course, we all know that from MNCs to any startup, when they see that you are a certified tester, advanced-level test analyst, or test manager, they will willingly pay you more because they know what values you bring to the organization, and that matters a lot to them. It gives you new perspectives and ideas to implement the knowledge. As I said, certification is not only about getting the paper called a certificate; it's about understanding different things, understanding different methodologies, and implementing it by customising it. So that's what you learn in the course, which itemises overall growth for you, which is quite natural. This taste is for home. This course is for home Each and every tester out there, any testmanager who has not taken a certification course yet, test leads, taste consultants, or test analysts, What are the eligibility criteria for Advanced Level Test Manager Certification? Number one is that a Foundation Level Certification score card is required. Number two is for degree holders in computer science or related fields. You need 24 months of testing experience if you want to take two submodels. And 36 months of experience is mandatory if you want to take all three sub models.When they are talking about sub-models, they are talking about the modules that we saw at the beginning of this slide show. That is a test manager, a test analyst, and a technical test analyst. So, if you want to take on any two submodels, you must have at least two years of experience as well as a degree in Computer Science or a related field. Degree number three for non bachelordegreein Computer Science, 60 months of experience is required. That is five years of experience in the software testing field and submodels of certification. As I mentioned earlier, I am a technical test analyst. It talks about structure-based testing, whitebox testing, and quality testing like security performance, where technical things are required. You are supposed to have knowledge of programming languages. You are supposed to know the compilation configuration and what kind of white box testing is involved. When it comes to test analysis, it's allabout test analysis, test design and test execution. And lastly, when it comes to test management, it's about planning and control along with documentation, estimation, and execution. People management and overall communication processes motivate people in the team. Each module has separate levels. You can take the exam for each module in any sequence. You'll get the certificate based on the module you choose to appear and clear. I hope I have clarified about the course. Now let's have a look at the syllabus for Advanced Level Test Manager. As you can see, it talks about testing processes, test management, reviews and feedback, defect management, improving the testing process, test tool and automation, and people skills. So ultimately it talks about everything, from processes to people to testing and execution. What is the exam pattern for each module? The exam consists of 65 objective-type questions. That will be solved in 3 hours. The questions can have one correct answer or more than one. The number of correct options is clearly mentioned in the question rate.There are 100 total points, a passing percentage of 65, and no negative marking. The questions are not direct. Instead they are scenario based. See, this is an advanced-level certification course. In Foundation Level Certification, you must have seen some direct questions based on the theory you have studied over here. You are supposed to have advanced levels of knowledge. They try to understand; they try to find out what you have understood from the syllabus, and that's why they'll put up the scenarios rather than asking you about theoretical questions. So if I talk about scenario let's sayin scenario X, there is a situation Y. What will you do? Or, out of the below options, select N numbers of the best suitable options, or something like that. So that's how it is. What are the documents required to apply for an advanced level certification course? As I said, foundation level scorecards include experience, a certificate, and an educational certificate. So that's it for the advanced level certification course. Now let's have a look at the details of the syllabus for Advanced Level Test Manager and how it works.

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Testing Process

1. Introduction

As a part of the introduction to the course. Let's try to understand what exactly we are going to learn from this course. As I said, the fundamental testing process we have learned from the Foundation Labor Test Certification Study includes the following activities: planning and control, analysis and design, implementation and execution, evaluating exact criteria, and reporting and testing closer activities What happens is Foundation-level certification includes all these activities with a brief introduction of each of them. When it comes to advanced level certification, you are expected to have deeper knowledge of each and every point. As a result, for Advanced Levels, some activities are considered separately. They are as follows: planning, monitoring, and control; analysis; design; implementation; execution; evaluating exit criteria; reporting; and finally, case-closer activities. So let's take a look at all of them one by one.

2. Test Planning, Monitoring and Control

The first chapter in the advanced level certification for Test Manager talks about testing processes, and when it comes to testing processes, the first topic is test planning, monitoring, and control. Let's have a look at how all these things work. What is this planning and when will it start? When it ends, what happens in test planning? So test planning starts at the beginning of the test process for a specific level and continues throughout the project lifecycle until the close of the project. If I talk about what the test planning includes, this mind map shows the correct picture. It includes identification of external dependencies, an approach for testing, defining test environment specifications, identification of metrics to be used, features of software, relationships between work products, and identification of test activities and resources. So let's try to understand all these factors one by one when we talk about the approach to testing. When we consider the testing approach, the following factors are supposed to be considered, like which test levels will be employed, the goals and objectives of each test level, and what techniques will be used at each level of text testing. A risk assessment, for example, describes what level of code coverage is required in risk-based testing of certain Avionics systems, and thus which testing techniques should be used. The second point is the identification of external dependencies, which is very much needed in this planning phase itself. All external dependencies and associated servicelevel agreements should be identified. If required, an initial contract should be made. Examples of dependencies are resource requests to outside groups, dependencies on other projects, external vendors or development partners, the deployment team, database administrators, etc. The third point talks about features of software within scope, identification of features in scope, and features not in scope. Each feature in scope can be associated with a corresponding test design specification depending on the level of formality. The fourth point talks about relationships between work products. Complex relationships may exist between the test-business test conditions, and the taste that covers them often means that many relationships exist between these work products. Tool decisions may also depend on the understanding of the relationships between the work products. The fifth point talks about defining test environment specifications. Test managers work with project architects to define the initial test environment specification and verify the availability of the resources required to ensure that the people who will configure the environment are committed to doing so. The work required to complete and deliver the test environment must be estimated in order to understand cost and delivery timescales. Number six is the identification of test activities and resources when using a risk-based testing strategy. Risk analysis is used to guide the test planning process regarding the mitigating activities required to reduce the identified product risks and to help with contingency planning. If a number of likely and serious potential defects related to security are identified, a significant amount of effort should be spent developing and executing security. It is, which is quite natural. Wherever you find more risk, try to mitigate it more. If it is identified that serious defects are usually found in the design specification, the test planning process could result in additional static testing of the design specification to try to mitigate the risk at that particular level itself. Number seven is about the identification of metrics to be used during the project life cycle. Depending upon the identified metrics during the planning stages, tools can be selected, training can be scheduled, and documentation guidelines can be established; therefore, this is the most important step for test planning. What is test monitoring and control? Test monitoring and control are a continuous activity. It involves comparing actual progress against the plan and implementing corrective actions when needed. It guides the testing to fulfil the mission, strategies, and objectives. It emphasises revisiting the test planning activities on a regular basis and, if needed, updating them. This is how test monitoring and control works. What happens is that the test manager takes care of test control. What is test control? It talks about a testing schedule and monitoring framework. Now, when it comes to monitoring frameworks, detailed measures and detailed criteria are required to understand how to monitor, what to monitor, when to monitor, why to monitor, and the targets needed. A detailed understanding of how the entire test monitoring and control process works is required to relate the status of test work products, which is critical, and into that plan and strategic objectives, the plan at each level and what objectives we are attempting to achieve from that particular level. The need is to relate the status of tastework products and activities to the taste basis in an understandable manner to the project and business stakeholders, defining targets and measuring progress based on test conditions that can be used as means to achieve it. The complex relationship between development work products, the test basis, and the test work products can become transparent and comprehensible if Traceability is properly configured and there is the ability to make a report on Traceability that talks about these metrics and ultimately reports for test monitoring and control. Early involvement of business stakeholders helps. It helps in defining detailed test measures; it helps define the targets that influence and drive the testing process. And if there is no legal documentation relating to system functionality or specifications with measures and targets required by stakeholders, it is even more difficult. For example, if the interest of business stakeholders is coverage rather than the normal business cycle, even though the specification is defined in terms of system functionality, it's difficult to achieve and understand. So that is about test planning, monitoring, and control. Now, let's move to the next topic.

3. Test Analysis

After test planning, monitoring, and control. The next topic is about test analysis. So what is "test analysis"? As the image shows, test analysis is ultimately what defines what needs to be tested, and when it comes to what needs to be tested, there are multiple factors to be considered, such as test basis, test objectives, and product risks. These three major factors decide on test conditions, and that is what test analysis is. How the test condition should be: The test condition should be traceable in both directions forward and backward). When it comes to forward traceability about test conditions, test designs and other testwork products should be considered. When it comes to backward traceability, test bases and test objectives are to be considered, whether the test objectives are met via the defined test conditions or not. And as I said in forward traceability, you are trying to measure the test condition, whether the designs—I meant the test design or the test script—for the particular test condition are possible, how you are going to do it, and what all the test work products are going to be as an output from those test conditions.

Factors to consider when deciding test conditions include the level of testing, the level of detail and quality of the test basis system or software complexity, project and product risk, the relationship between the test basis, what is to be tested and how it is to be tested, software development, the lifecycle in use, and lastly, the test management tool being utilized. The level at which this design and other testwork products are to be specified and documented depends on the skills and knowledge of the taste analysis, the maturity of the test process, and the organisation itself. Please note here that higher maturity may require a greater level of detail or allow a lesser level of detail. It really depends. availability of other project stakeholders for consultation. So what are the advantages of having detailed test conditions? Will detailed test conditions facilitate more flexibility in relating other test work products like test cases to the test basis and test objectives, thus providing better and more detailed monitoring and control for a test manager? What happens is that when the taste conditions are defined in detail, it is very easy for anyone to relate them to test cases and try to understand whether the coverage is proper or not.

And most of the time, that's the factor the test manager is looking for. So that's where the detailed test conditions are useful. On the second point, the detailed test conditions contribute to defect prevention, as discussed in the foundation level, by occurring early in a project for higher levels of testing as soon as the test business is established and potentially the system architecture and detail design are available. These conditions relate testing work products to stakeholders in a way that allows them to comprehend the entire test work product. Often, test cases and other testing work products mean nothing to business stakeholders, and simple metrics such as the number of test cases executed mean nothing to the coverage requirements of stakeholders. It really depends on the stakeholders what kind of testing work products are required, and that's where the test conditions are helpful in relating to both the direction.Detailed test conditions help influence and direct not just other testing activities but also other development activities too. It enables test design, implementation, and execution together with the resulting work product to be optimised by more efficient coverage of detailed measures and targets. It provides the basis for clearer horizontal traceability within a test level, which is really important. What are the disadvantages of having detailed test conditions? As it consumes all the details, it is potentially time consuming.It takes much more time to define the detailed test conditions. Maintainability can become difficult in a changing environment, and that's how most of the software development projects nowadays are, where there are constantly changing requirements. And in this kind of situation, maintaining the detailed test conditions is very tough. A level of formality needs to be defined and implemented across the team.

So let's try to understand where detailed test conditions are required. It is required. I mean that lightweight test design documentation methods such as checklists are being used to accommodate the development lifecycle cost and time constraints or other factors. As a test basis, legal or non-legal requirements, as well as other developmentwork products, are available. The project is large-scale, complex, or high-risk and requires a level of monitoring and control that cannot be delivered by simply relating test cases to development work products. when component-level testing is required. when there are less complex projects where simple hierarchical relationships exist between what is to be tested and how it is to be tested. Acceptance testing, where use cases can be utilised to help define this, In all these factors, detailed test conditions are not at all required. That's it for test analysis. Let's move to the next topic.

4. Test Design

After test analysis, it comes to test design. So what is test design, and how do you do it? Let's have a look. What is test design? Test design defines how to test something. It's an identification of test cases with all the details about these conditions and test techniques as part of the strategy or test plan. Let's say, for example, that in this plan we have defined that we'll do black box testing as well as grey box testing. And for black box testing, we'll use the XYZ Tool. So as per the definition in the test plan, the test conditions like how to test and what to test will be defined, identified, and have all the details like if I have to test the login page, what exactly I'm going to test, which tool I'm going to use, what I'm going to check, etc. So that is referred to as test design in general. So, when should you start working on the test design? Once test conditions are identified, you are ready to work on test design. Also, you must have enough information available to produce high- or low-level test cases. For higher levels of testing, test design follows test analysis activities for lower levels of testing. Test analysis and design are conducted as an integrated activity, which is understood correctly. For higher levels of testing, you must define the test analysis and test conditions in advance, and then you can move to the test design phase. Whereas for lower levels of testing, both activities can be done simultaneously and can be integrated. So, if an iterative approach is used to build test cases, tasks from the test implementation area are integrated into the test design. For example, creation of test data, identification of tools, training for that particular test tool we are going to use, etc. So this is all about test design. Let's move to the next topic.

5. Test Implementation

Test design comes after test implementation. So test implementation is basically kind of middle part betweentest execution and test design where as a tester youget ready with all the details to be executed. So let's see what this implementation is and what to expect. So, when we are saying test implementation, allthe tests are organised and prioritised define inputand the expected output in test case specification. Test steps in test procedure specifications are ready. The creation of stored test data is already done; ensuring delivery of the test environment, test data, and code comes under test implementation. All test cases are ready to execute after final review. Check against implicit and explicit criteria for test level, which is important. Detailed description of test data and test environment the order in which manual and automated tests are to be run. Check on dependencies on test environments and associated risks. So that is what "test implementation" is. Now, what are the advantages and disadvantages of having Early test implementation means you have all these details ready at an early stage in the project life cycle. You'll say there is no disadvantage. Let's see. So the advantage of early test implementation is primarily that it is about the detail-level tests that are in test implementation. It provides an exact idea of how the software should behave, and that helps software designers and developers during development. So what are the disadvantageswhen it comes to disadvantages? Let's say you are working for Agile. Following the Agile development model, where things are dynamic and therefore detailed, might result in a waste of time and resources. Scripting tests may also be ineffective in poorly managed sequential models where requirements change at later stages. So, this is all about test implementation.

6. Exit Criteria and Reporting

The next step after test execution is evaluating exit criteria and reporting. In test execution, you have a defined set of entry criteria and you begin testing execution. But somewhere that testing activitiesneed to be stopped. So, when do I stop? What are the criteria to be considered? That evaluation phase is called evaluating exit criteria and reporting. So, what is to be done in this phase, and what is the role of the test manager over here? What happens is that information and data should be available to evaluate the exit criteria in the correct manner. The definition of information required and methods for collecting it should be part of test planning. Actually, while test planning itself exit criteria isdefined, the frequency and level of detail requiredshould be defined during test planning. During each test step, a test manager should confirm that the right information from the right person is available at the right time for effective evaluation and frequency. If the information is not correct, the exit criteria might not be met, and the taste manager might take the wrong decision. Therefore, he needs to make sure that all the right information from the right person is available at the right time. So, that is all about awareness. Evaluating Test Criteria Now, let's move on to the last point, which is about closer activities.

7. Test Closure

As I said in last part, test closer is thelast activity when it comes to software testing so howto close, how to decide what are the things tobe considered, what are the artefacts to be hand over? This page contains everything; let's go over the factors one by one first. Test completion check happens by ensuring all test work is indeed concluded: all planned tests have been executed or skipped deliberately, and all known defects should be fixed. rejected or accepted as permanent restrictions, There is no pending defect and almost all thetest cases have been executed and if any. You know. Test cases have been skipped. They are known test artefacts hand over delivering valuablework product to right audience known and deferred defectsshould be given to system users so that theuser knows what to expect Because the maintenance testing team will be working on it once the product or software is on the market, the test and test environment should be given to them. Regression testing should be documented and delivered to the maintenance team. need to consider What kind of licence did the team obtain? While the whole testing phase should be part of a retrospective meeting where issues are discussed, Plans for good practises to be repeated and assurance that poor practises do not get repeated are areas to be considered for lessons learned. They are quality risk analysis sessions having broad enough user representation estimation, which is always a major problem with all the teams' trends and results of cause and effect analysis of defects and potential process improvement opportunities, of course. While whole testing phase as ateam you follow some process. You simply keep some testing methods, but in the end, you realise what could have been done better in terms of improving the overall process, identifying any unexpected deviations from plan that should be considered for future projects, and finally archiving results. Locks and work products in the configuration management system, so the CMS should be updated with all versions of documents and work products, and that's where you can say that the testing closes the page I meant the software testing phase is closed.

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