1.Implicit Risk context approach
2.Metrics-Based approach
3.Test work breakdown approach
4.Iterative approach
5.Percentage of development approach
Implicit Risk context approach
Project manager (or) QA Manager to implicitly use risk context in combination with past personal experiences in the organization to choose a level of resources to allocate to testing
Risk context Factor:
a)Software quality levels
b)Software's intended use
c)Experience level of developers and testers
Metric based Approach
Track past experience of an organization various projects and associated test effort that worked well for projects.This past experience information can be used for further future test project planning.
Test work breakdown approach
Decompose the expected testing tasks into collection of small tasks for which estimates can at least in theory be made with reasonable accuracy.
Iterative approach
In this approach for large test efforts an initial rough testing estimate is made.once testing begins a more refined approach is made after a small percentage(eg 1%) of the first estimate's work is done.
Then a yet more refined estimate is made after a somewhat larger percentage(eg 2%) of the new work estimate is done. Respect the cycle as necessary/Appropriate.
Percentage of development approach
Some organizations utilize a quick estimation method for testing based on the estimated programming effort. For example If a project is estimated to require 1000 hours of programming effort, and the organization normaally finds that a 40% ratio for testing os appropriate
Then an estimate of 400 hours for testing would be used this approach may (or) may not be useful depending on the project to variations in risk personal,types of applications,levels of complexity etc.
