mithr17

 Profile Answers by mithr17 

• Nov 1st, 2011

 

This is a very good question!

Let me start of by differentiating between BRD and FRD/FSD.

A 'business requirements' document details requirements desired by client that are necessary for their business. It is requirements from business standpoint. It is usually the requirements for the business to be able to produce and support the desired application.

The general "requirements" document is more from the customer or end-user viewpoint. These are the requirements the products must adhere to.

As a QA you will know what are the important requirements from business standpoint. Any test cases related to these business requirements have very high priority. Yes, these days companies started setting priorities for test cases too. So, the functionality related to these high-level business requirements becomes core functionality.

How will business requirements help QA?
- What type of application is it - web or client-served
- Who are the targeted audience to this application
- Which domain is this application associated with? again the QA team will be better prepared for domain testing and there by unearth any design gaps.
- The high-level requirements will help you decide which test cases out of say 500 can be run for smoke, sanity and regression tests.
- Help in deciding priority for bugs
- Help you understand which features form core functionality.
- Helps QA write effective and efficient test plans.
- Business requirements would be the only requirements in the absence of FRD/FSD. Yes, for small and medium size projects, it is becoming a common practice these days.
- Know the important deadlines
- Terms used in application and their definitions
- who are the project internal and external stake holders. This will help QA whom to contact when QA wants to raise a red flag
- Technologies and environments being used in application
- Sometimes BRD might say the application needs to withstand at least 30,000 users. This will be the bases for load testing.
- Business requirements will help you decide which level and type of testing should be used to best test the application.
- Will aid in performance and security testing.

The answer to your question is in "How will business requirements help QA?" As you see a lot of information can be gathered just from BRD. In short its the business requirements, timelines AKA deadlines, domain information (if any), team, project stake holders etc.

As a QA team member you do not have anything to do with budget. But you have a role to play in estimation. Again QA manager or QA lead will estimate the testing efforts required for the application with the help of QA team.