QA & Testing Methodology¶
A complete reference for QA fundamentals, testing theory, process, and career growth. Covers both conceptual knowledge (principles, levels, techniques) and practical process (planning, execution, defect management, metrics).
Contents¶
| File | Plan Sections | Topics |
|---|---|---|
| Fundamentals, Levels & Types | 1–4 | QA vs QC, shift-left, ISTQB 7 principles, verification vs validation, test levels, functional/non-functional types |
| Test Design & Planning | 5–7 | Black/white-box techniques, test case structure, test plan vs strategy, entry/exit criteria |
| Execution, Defects & Environments | 8–11 | Execution process, defect lifecycle, severity vs priority, environments, test data |
| Automation, SDLC & Agile | 12–15 | When to automate, testing in Waterfall/Agile/DevOps, QA in Scrum, risk-based testing |
| Metrics, Docs & Practices | 16–22 | Test metrics, documentation, traceability, communication, anti-patterns, best practices, QA career levels |
| TDD, BDD & ATDD | — | Red/Green/Refactor cycle, Gherkin, ATDD flow, combining all three, anti-patterns |
| Release Quality Gates & Checklists | — | Merge/deploy gates, contract testing, flaky tests policy, PR checklist, risk register, templates |
| Shift-Right & Observability | — | Canary, feature flags, synthetic monitoring, chaos in production, SLO/error budget, AI-assisted QA |
| Exploratory Testing & SBTM | — | Exploratory testing, charters, time-boxed sessions, heuristics, debrief, when to automate findings |
| Requirements Quality & Testability | — | Requirement quality criteria, testability checklist, weak wording fixes, Three Amigos, ready-for-QA |
| Defect Triage, RCA & CAPA | — | Triage workflow, Five Whys, root-cause buckets, corrective/preventive actions, closure criteria |
| Coverage Strategy | — | Requirement/risk/code/data/environment coverage, coverage review checklist, code coverage limits |
| Test Estimation & Effort Planning | — | Story/release estimation, risk modifiers, planning buckets, anti-patterns, output template |
| Domain-Specific QA | — | QA focus by domain: web, mobile, API/backend, data/ETL, AI/LLM, fintech |
| Shift-Left Testing | — | Strategy components, quality gates, pipeline architecture, ownership model, maturity roadmap, defect cascade |
Related sections¶
- Test Design Techniques — deep dives into black-box / white-box / experience-based methods
- Testing Pyramid — unit, integration, E2E strategy in practice
- Test Design Patterns — POM, Screenplay, Data Builder, fixture patterns
- Test Automation Framework — framework design, config, CI integration
- CI/CD Approaches — quality gates, pipeline testing strategy