What is the RIGHT amount of testing?

Test teams often struggle to estimate how long testing will take during refinement, what is the RIGHT amount of testing and how do we estimate this? We often lack a full understanding of the change to be able to give realistic expectations of how much testing we need to do.

But we can provide resonably accurate estimations without fully understanding all of the requirements of the change. To provide these estimations we need to understand the risk and impact of the change:

• Risk: Provides the tester with an understanding of how much feature testing to conduct
• Impact: Provides the tester with an understanbding of how much regression is necessary

Using the test estimation matrix above we can quickly make high level estimations on how much testing we will need to conduct for each change during refinement. By doing so we build confidence within the team that we are doing the right amount of testing for each change without wasting time or going overboard in what we do.

Converting the matrix into estimates is straight forwards:

• Light Testing: Small to Medium amount of effort
• Medium Testing: Medium to large amount of effort
• Heavy Testing: Large testing effort often involving several members of the team