• Establish The Assignment (AST)

Preconditions

• Master test plan - The master test plan drives the setup and execution of the test level.
• Milestones - Often, as soon as the test assignment is issued, a number of milestones are established, such as the delivery date of the test basis, the test object, infrastructure and the date of going into production.
• Available resources - The client often sets limits to the available people, resources and budget.
• Norms and standards to be maintained - From within the (test) organisation or the master test plan, certain requirements may be set as regards method of operation, procedures, techniques, templates, etc.

Assumptions

• Quality of preceding tests - The preceding tests, e.g. development or system tests are carried out in the agreed manner.
• Quality of test object - The test object has the agreed entry quality. This should be established with the aid of so-called entry criteria, which overlap with (but are not necessarily the same as) the exit criteria of the preceding test.
• Support to be supplied - Within the test process there is a need for various forms of support, e.g. in respect of the test basis, test object, domain knowledge and/or infrastructure. This support may be required to a certain degree and/or for a certain period. Bear in mind, for example, the availability of developers for solving obstructive defects during the test execution. Usually, each test level has its own expertise. For instance, the users acceptance test will have little need of domain knowledge support, while the support needs will concern precisely the other types of expertise, such as technical or testmethod support.
• Changes in test basis and test object - The test team should be involved in the implementation of changes. In most cases, this simply means following up the existing procedures within the system development process. For example, the test manager should participate in the Change Control Board in order to estimate the consequences of a change from the test point of view.
• Delivery of the test object - The development team delivers the test object in a number of different but efficiently testable parts, and takes responsibility for installation in the test environment.
• Reaction time to defects - How quickly should the project react to the finding of defects. Below is an example of such agreements:
  
  

  Severity	Priority	Reaction time	Lead time
  Test-obstructive	High	1 hour	4 hours
  Severe defect	High	1 hour	1 working day
  Regular defect	High	1 working day	2 working days
  Regular defect	Low	1 working day	To be determined per defect
  Cosmetic defect	Low	2 working days	To be determined per defect