3 Visual Models on Quality

Besides the visualization of the delivery pipeline it can be a good idea to visualize your quality model. There’s more to it than V-model, Agile/Scrum and other old models. The following models are at least as established and practice based as any old book …

While numerous test strategy document templates and document formats exists, the focus of this article is visual models. From what I have seen with regards to test strategy document templates the Ashby model, below, illustrates most of the practical content in such templates.

Dan Ashby’s Perceived Quality Model

Dan Ashby’s “A new model for test strategies” illustrates that a test strategy needs to consider the context, the approaches, the structure, the test ideas and the test execution, including continuous testing – to gather the knowledge about the perceived quality for the system under test.

Heuristic Test Strategy Model

Besides the Ashby model the Heuristic Test Strategy Model (HTSM) also comes into mind. The HTSM list properties around the Project Environment, Quality Criteria, Product Elements and Test Techniques to define the Testing and Quality Story.

Quality Ice Cream Truck

Other more recent visual models of testing exist – based on the works of Jerry Weinberg, Rich Rogers developed a visual model than Sergio Freire has recently refined in the “Quality Ice Cream Truck”:

The Ice Cream Truck model is a graph of the of the relationship between testing, risks, quality and other elements. It frames the perception of the role of testing, which is the corner stone of every test strategy.

Review

The three models (Ashby, HTSM and Ice Cream Truck) states generic properties of test strategies . You need to draw your own model or list your own properties to visualize the test strategy based on any one of them. The models are diagrams, or directional graphs, that illustrate links between items. You can rearrange the components and keep the directional links and it would still be the same meaning. Well, besides the ice cream truck…

While I find the models above useful – I still lack a visualization in the discussions and decisions needed to derive at a test strategy. While listing generic properties can get me started, I still need to visualize:

Who does what parts of the testing – and why?
What to automate?
What tools and frameworks to utilize?

And even more: What is the value for the decision maker for each part of the test strategy? ? As Wardley maps are drawn from decision maker needs and enable discussions and decisions around maturity and value – there seems to be a match to the challenges above.

My findings are: