How important is sprint test plan in agile?

Question

I have been preparing a test plan for every sprint even if I have a master test plan just to plan the test for the current sprint. I am including topics like:

1. Introduction
2. Purpose
3. Feature Overview
4. Inscope
5. Outscope
6. Assumptions and Risks
7. Approach
8. Test Deliverables
9. Testing Task and Proposed Schedule

Recently after discussing with some of my fellow mates and colleagues. They suggested not to make a sprint test plan and is covered by the master test plan. Is it ok to not make a Sprint Test Plan and go on with the master test plan?

Answer 1

The biggest problem I see with this is that you're looking at a mini-waterfall rather than a sprint. The description you're giving above forces the team to deliver all or nothing. What if they have 12 items in the sprint and deliver 9? Does that mean you won't test or release what has been done? If so then I dread your release schedule, every time any team member misses any work item you'll fail to deploy - that weekly deploy will quickly become months long.

My suggestion would be that all the information you've put above should already be available.

• Introduction - Sprint Name, Dates, and goal - job done!
• Purpose - See above
• Feature Overview - a list of stories in the sprint
• Inscope - As above
• Outscope - The backlog minus what's above
• Assumptions and Risks - this depends on what your company is expecting but there's no reason you can't capture risks to stories during backlog refinement. Again, the key is that it's a risk to the story not a risk to the release. Product/Team risk management should be handled outside the sprint framework.
• Approach - Part of the stories themselves
• Test Deliverables - Can you deliver a story without testing it?
• Testing Task and Proposed Schedule - as above

The point I'm trying to make is that all of this information should be available to anyone who wants it either through a link to the Sprint or a link to the story.

My biggest piece of advice - testing is not a phase, it's one of the tasks required to complete a story. Identify the tests you'll do on each story at the same time as identifying the development tasks.

Answer 2

It's very tempting to answer your question with "it depends", since that's the answer to many "should I...?" questions.

In this case, however, the answer is no. You should not create a sprint test plan. At least, not a formal one. The only test plan you need for a sprint is "verify that every completed story is well tested".

As a QA engineer on a scrum team, part of your responsibility should be to work with the product owner and the developers to identify appropriate acceptance criteria before the sprint starts. Thus, by the time the sprint starts you should already have a plan, which is represented by the acceptance criteria for each story.