Why I don’t use Test Management Tools at all?

Avoid those useless “Test Management tools”. Learn and Practise Test Automation!

This article is one of the “IT Terminology Clarified” series.

You might have heard of some of the following so-called test management tools, such as Quality Center, TestRail, PractiTest, Xray, Testmo, and SpiraTest. Not long ago, I received one LinkedIn message from one of the above to promote its product on my blog. I rejected it by replying, “I don’t use any test management tools, and strongly suggest my clients avoid using one”.

∘ What is Test Management Tool?
∘ Test Management Tool is a legacy of Waterfall
∘ Agile/DevOps Perspective
∘ Test Management Tools are for reporting, not assisting in Test Execution
∘ Why is Test Management Tools totally useless in Test Execution?
∘ How about Regression Testing?
∘ As a test manager, I agree. How can I move away from the test management tool?

What is Test Management Tool?

According to Guru99, “Test management tools are used to store information on how testing is to be done, plan specific testing activities, and report the complete status of quality assurance activities.” I think most IT professionals will concur.

In this article, I will explain why a real Agile/DevOps software project doesn’t need the above test-management activities. Therefore, test management tools become unnecessary.

If your project is doing Waterfall (or publicly acknowledged doing fake Agile), stop reading this article.

Test Management Tool is a legacy of Waterfall

The so-called “test design” phase (plan and write down test steps in a test management tool) is a concept in WaterFall.

So-called “Test Design Phase” in WaterFall mode

When a Waterfall software project starts, what will the testing team do? There is nothing to test, the architects are still designing. To justify its existence, the testing team works in prepare-to-test mode, which usually lasts several months!

Agile/DevOps Perspective

While most software projects nowadays claim doing Agile or Scrum, even DevOps, the majority just fake it. A good starting question is, “How often does your team push updates to production? Daily, Weekly, Fortnightly, Months, Quarterly, Annually?”

“Daily, Weekly, Fortnightly” are three acceptable answers in real Agile/DevOps projects. Don’t just take my word for it, let’s look at what the Agile authorities say about this.

The message is quite clear. In an agile project, there is definitely no time to plan and write test steps (text format) in so-called test management too upfront.

Test Management Tools are for reporting, not assisting in Test Execution

Some might wonder why test management tools are still used nowadays. Let’s revisit the definition of Test management tools: “used to store information on how testing is to be done, plan specific testing activities, and report the complete status of quality assurance activities.” This time, I highlighted some keywords, “store information”, “plan”, “report”, and “complete status”. All of them are related to the Test manager’s reporting, right?

Here is what a typical test manager might report to his senior VP:

“Based on our test plan (it took a team 2 months to plan and design test cases in a test management tool), we executed 25% of tests this week, 50% so far. Raises 75 defects, still about 30 not resolved yet. We expect to complete this cycle in 4 weeks”.

All the information that the test manager can extract from the test management tool, how cool is that? No, it is not cool, it is time-wasting.

If test management tools work well, why do so many manual testers still use Excel when they perform manual testing?

Back to the reporting, if I were the senior VP or CIO, I would much prefer seeing the following.