Setting priorities, time management, and scope
The risk census discussed earlier gives one defined process that allows management to change the scope. We have talked about another – the low-tech testing dashboard. In all these examples, the team breaks the software down into features (or, in some cases, user journeys). Then, they make a list of things to test and ask management to advise on how deeply to test and the priorities. From there, with historical data, the team can predict how long the test effort will take.
Consider, for example, feature testing, which we have not covered deeply enough yet in this book. Most organizations think of testing as simply an activity that happens or does not. The subset of test ideas that are institutionalized as automated checks might just be the ones created by the business analyst or, most likely, the things the tester found easy to code up in the time available. Sadly, the automated check that is the most work to code (and thus skipped...