ISTQB Advanced Test Management Glossary

About this topic

Source: ISTQB Certified Tester Advanced Level Test Management (CTAL-TM)

Advanced Level test management covers the organisational and strategic side of testing — the concerns of a test manager rather than a tester. These terms extend well beyond the Foundation Level treatment of planning, monitoring, and risk.

Strategy operates at two levels. An organisational test strategy sets the approach across an organisation; project-level test approaches then tailor it. The syllabus names several strategy archetypes: analytical (driven by analysis, typically risk-based), model-based, methodical (following a checklist or standard set of conditions), process- or standard-compliant, reactive (responding to the system as encountered, as in exploratory testing), consultative, and regression-averse. Real programmes almost always blend several.

Test process improvement has its own established models. TMMi (Test Maturity Model Integration) and TPI Next assess and stage the maturity of a test process; the Critical Testing Processes model takes a different route by focusing on the processes that matter most in a given context. These sit alongside general process assessment and CMMI. Note that the formal distinction between process-reference and content-reference models belongs to the Expert Level Improving the Test Process syllabus rather than to Advanced Level Test Management.

Estimation and measurement deepen considerably. Wideband Delphi structures expert consensus; test point analysis derives effort from a functional size measure. Defect detection percentage measures escape rate, and a RACI matrix clarifies who is responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed for each activity.

Quality management widens the frame further — quality gates, quality debt, and total quality management address organisational quality rather than product testing alone, and the test manager is usually the person expected to speak to them.

What this topic covers

• Organisational test strategy
• Strategy archetypes
• TMMi, TPI Next and CTP
• Wideband Delphi and test point analysis
• RACI matrices and quality gates
• Test management roles