5 Ways to Overcome Your Hatred of Test Documentation

[article]
Summary:
Writing test documents is a good practice to have: It enforces an orderly thought process, explains what you’re planning, and improves the test strategy. But knowing it's useful doesn't make it any more fun. Michael Stahl knows this, so he has five tips to help make the idea of test documentation a little easier—or at least a little more difficult to hate.

As far as I know, there isn’t yet a support group for testers. But if there were, I believe many of us would confess to having a severe aversion to writing test documents.

Part of my job definition is to be the annoying person who pushes people to write documents. I defined the document templates, and I review most of the test documents my team produces. I can tell you that it’s just about as you imagine: unexciting and much less fun that running tests and finding an interesting bug.

Worse, because I am the one preaching about test documents, I have to be a good example and do what I ask others to do. I can’t skip writing test documents for any of the projects I am responsible for, even though I really don’t enjoy it. In fact, when writing test documents, I have to get up every now and them and take a walk in the hallway just to wake up.

Even though it’s not the most interesting task, writing test documents is a good practice to have. It enforces an orderly thought process about the test challenge ahead, explains what we’re planning and why we do things this way and not another way, and improves the action plan, the test strategy, effort estimation, and task partition.

Documented plans also let stakeholders know what they can expect to get from the validation team. It allows feedback if we made mistakes in our plan and reduces the number of surprises caused by misunderstanding or mismatched expectations.

None of this should be news to you, but it still doesn’t make the process any more fun. However, I may be able to make the idea of test documentation a little easier, or at least a little more palatable. You’re going to have to do it anyway, so why not try to overcome your hatred of test documentation and try to get in a better mental state about it? Here are five tips.

1. Write the test document for yourself

Get used to the fact that very few, if any, people will read the test document. This is OK. The main beneficiary of a written test document is the author. Writing it helps you order your thoughts and organize the test plan into clear steps you (and anyone else) can understand.

Besides, if you don’t expect anyone to read the document, you won’t be disappointed when that’s just what happens. In their book Exploring Requirements: Quality Before Design, Donald C. Gauss and Gerald Weinberg relate to this disappointment. They write, “The document is nothing; the documenting is everything.”

Writing the document is the goal. If it is read by others, that’s a bonus.

2. Use your human thought process

In today’s Twitter world, we feel that any idea can be conveyed in one or two sentences—and if we need more, someone must have already found a trick or developed an app that will do the job for us. We believe that if we only think hard enough, we will find a technological solution that will write documentation for us, like Doxygen did for code documentation.

It’s frustrating to spend a lot of time doing something manually when all the time you feel it could be automated and be done more efficiently. But writing a document is a thought activity, and luckily no one yet has found out how to automate that. So stop torturing yourself about wasting time and revel in the fact that this is a human job that isn’t replaceable.

3. Teach yourself touch-typing

Part of the reluctance to write test documents comes from the fact that it takes a lot of time. It takes even more time if you only use two fingers or have to keep stopping to look at the keys.

Touch-typing won’t only improve your test documents, but also the clarity of your bug reports, your code documentation, and your emails. When typing is hard, you tend to skip writing or express yourself in one-syllable words. When typing is easy, your prose is flowing, clear, and easy to read.

4. Master the language

For non-English speakers who need to write test documents in English (or any language that is not mastered at the mother-tongue level), the language itself is a barrier to efficient writing. If you struggle to formulate a sentence because the language is foreign, writing takes more time and can be extremely frustrating.

To help fix the process, first, ask if the document has to be in the foreign language. If it does, check if you can write in your native language and have the document translated. Your time may be significantly more valuable to your company than the cost of a translator.

However, if you know that the business environment in your country is such that you will always need to work in a foreign language, invest effort in improving your mastery of the language. Here, too, your company may agree to cover the costs.

One way of learning a new language that worked well for me is reading a lot in that language. In high school, I had to improve my English. At about the same time I discovered science fiction. For three years, I almost exclusively read sci-fi in English. Not only do I know The Three Laws of Robotics and grok what grok means, but I also got much better at writing English.

Find books in the language you need to learn about topics you love, and you will have fun while learning.

5. Learn how to write

I’m not just talking about how to write test documents. Learn to write anything—creative writing, for example. Once general writing is more fluent, writing work-related documents will be easier as well.

In his must-read article about the importance of requirements documents, software engineer Joel Spolsky says, “Writing is a muscle. The more you write, the more you’ll be able to write.” Splosky testifies from his own experience: to overcome his fear of writing, he took a class in college that required him to write an essay every week.

If you’re stuck with writer’s block when it comes to your test documentation, try writing something—anything—else first. You’ll find the words will flow more easily.

Just Do It

There are many things you do in life because you should, not because you want to: eating right, working out, PTA meetings, flossing … so just add test documentation to this category. And stop procrastinating. My experience is that when you write test documents on time—at the start of a project, not toward its end—in most cases, you will feel the effort was worth it and that you gained some benefit. I hope these tips can help.

User Comments

12 comments
Dave Maschek's picture

I write detailed test cases for two reasons. One, because they are easier to automate if they are detailed. Two, because the automation team probably won't get to my test case anytime soon. So, two months from now when I have to re-run the test case, I will have all the detailed steps in front of me. If the author is referring to a test plan, I agree that it is helpful to write something out in order to clarify the problem. But I would keep the test plan as brief as possible and include it in the introduction to the test case.

March 21, 2017 - 2:01pm
Michael Stahl's picture

One of the reasons I give people why they need to invest in good documentation is that they will be the first to enjoy it when they come back to their code or test cases after a few weeks. I see we agree on this.

We probably have somewhat different opinions on how detailed a test plan needs to be and if it should be a stand alone document or part of the test cases; but as long as you do documentation that fulfills your needs, I salute you.

 

Michael

March 22, 2017 - 12:14am
Matt Griscom's picture

There IS a way to automate documentation for the lowest, most detail-oriented and product-facing aspects of a check: See MetaAutomation, the pattern language and code samples available on the site metaautomation.net.

Unlike BDD/Gherkin, this coding technique generates hierarchical steps of a check at runtime, and even uses those steps as a reference for the next run. The artifact of a check is pure data so very powerful and flexible for self-documentation, analysis, notifications etc.

 

March 21, 2017 - 2:09pm
Richard Nixon's picture

Isn't it better to write the testing document as actual code.

Tools like Cucumber are great for this...
* write tests in business language with business product owners.
* write the technical tests with software developers or do it yourself

If you do then it will become a living document that gets used regularly at every release.

March 24, 2017 - 7:10am
Michael Stahl's picture

Richard -

What you propose is a good way to document the test cases. But does this give you an overall picture of your plans?

There is stuff that is better considered ahead of writing the test cases:

- Strategy (e.g. what to test, what not to test; prioritization)

- Partition of the work among different groups

- Thinking what tools that will be used; what tools will need to be aquired or developed

- Defining processes (how you get builds from dev; how you report bugs; etc.)

... and many more details.

 

This is the stuff I recommend to think about ahead of time, before starting to write (well documented) test cases.

 

Thanks for the comment!

 

Michael

March 24, 2017 - 10:43am
Tim Thompson's picture

We write detailed tests for the initial develpment. For any UI related tests we created a test case library that allows for cloning test cases and requiring only minimal edits afterward. That has the benefit of speeding up test case creation, keeping tests consistent, and not forgetting something. We keep a reference to the test case library entry and if anything changes across the entire app we can quickly find all those tests that each need the same change. I second the point made in the article, writing test documentation and crafting test data is probably the best way to accomplish systematic testing with large coverage. It does not exclude exploratory testing, both approaches have value.

We also write a separate set of tests for regression that focus mainly on function. Those tests are not only targeted for automation, we also had great success with crowdsourcing testing by bringing in support reps and trainers to help out when we have a lot to test and little time to do it.

Detailed and regression tests in one place and in a common format allow for sharing work. At times we don't get the work load assignment quite right. Having clear and easy to follow tests allows for passing on some test work to others, either within QA or within the department. A development group berefts itself from a lot of agility without proper, well-maintained, and complete tests.

March 27, 2017 - 8:04am
Michael Stahl's picture

Tim -

sounds like a good and flexible system!

 

A general note; The responses so far are focused on the test cases: how well they are written and documented.

What if someone (developers; project manager) want to know what is your test strategy? or what is it they can expect to get from the test team? If all you can give them is a set of well documented tests, they need to "build the forest from the trees" - that is, understand your strategy by looing at (sometimes hundreds of) tests.

A test PLAN - NOT a test case list - is the document that will provide this information.

 

If in your world "test plan" is synonym to "test case list" - look up the definitions (for example in the ISTQB glossary: http://www.istqb.org/downloads/category/20-istqb-glossary.html) to see the difference.

 

Michael

March 28, 2017 - 10:02am
Tim Thompson's picture

Sorry for the late reply. Yes, you are right. We only do a subset of what is considered a test plan. We typically operate on one common environment, so we can forego documenting that. Capturing the test approach is something we can add and I see value in it. Sadly, we rarely get asked how we test, but this might improve the understanding.

January 6, 2018 - 8:09am
T. Pot's picture

For test cases, I write them for a new QA person in mind (new to the company).  Use numbered steps and sentence fragments.  Keep it short.

Can you get documentation "for free?"  About 5 years ago, I came across a test automation tool that produced human-readable test cases.  Sorry, I've forgotten the name of it.  It didn't work well with our AUT, so I didn't pursue it.  I believe the same kind of thing is possible with HP UFT if developers name functions logically.

For test plans, well, I guess you're not using Agile.  A Test Plan document has no place in Agile.  One key element is scope and you'll get your scope when the Sprint Planning is completed.

August 2, 2017 - 2:16pm
Tim Thompson's picture

What makes you say that a test plan document has no place in Agile? Agile values working software over comprehensive documentation. That does NOT mean no documentation! It is a common misinterpretation of the Agile Manifesto. Reduce the amount of documentation needed. For example, we test a browser based product that runs on a common back end. The only variable is the browser, but over 80% of our customers use Chrome, around 15% IE, and the negligible rest is Firefox and Edge. In our case there is no point in including test environment descriptions in test plans because it is common knowledge within our division and already documented elsewhere. That's the part that Agile aims to eliminate.

If you do not have test cases, how do you know what was tested and what was covered? How do you capture test resultss? If you do not document the test results you did not test the product.

January 6, 2018 - 8:15am

Pages

About the author

StickyMinds is a TechWell community.

Through conferences, training, consulting, and online resources, TechWell helps you develop and deliver great software every day.