It's a sort of test management activity to observe and analyze the progress status of the testing phase, which is useful in deciding the future course of action to be implemented in the testing process. It is used to make out the comparison between the "actual progress" and "what was planned".
The chief goal behind the test monitoring is to provide the regularly updated status of the on-going testing phase during the course of time to the project manager or test manager or stakeholders so as to make them aware about the quantity and quality of progress done in the testing phase.
The insight of the testing phase provided by the test team, enables project manager or test manager or stakeholders to manage the left out or pending testing activities so as to meet the target of releasing the quality product within the specified deadlines.
The utmost priority of an organization is not only to deliver a quality product to its client, but also to meet the deadlines so as to fulfil the promises made while taking over the project. A client may feel disappointed & annoyed on the late delivery of the product, which may result into client's loss of trust in doing further business with the organization and thereby, brings damage to brand and value of the company.
Moreover, it's a common fact that every process and tasks needs effective management until its completion so as to produce desired results. To manage something, it requires monitoring. Based on the results of monitoring, certain exercises or actions are being executed through test control activity to manage or correct the process. Thus, test monitoring may be seen as a tool to keep the progress of the testing phase on the track in accordance to priorly developed strategies & plan.
An after process of test monitoring to take corrective actions and direct the testing process is to achieve the goals that were planned within the stipulated and specified time period. Test Control is completely based on the results of the test monitoring. Thus, the output of test monitoring activity works as an input for the test control phase.
The task of monitoring the testing activities may be carried out either manually by collecting and analyzing the test metrics data especially for the smaller projects, or through automation by making use of the management tools to automate the task of data gathering, and accordingly presenting the output in the form of a table, chart, graph, etc., generally for large projects.
Below given are the some of the useful metrics, which may be used in measuring the progress of the testing activities along with the exit criteria.
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