Mind maps In place of test cases?

As a tester in agile team, the main challenge for me is to meet the deadlines. As in every typical agile model, our release cycles are short typically from 1 week to 4 weeks. My team and I had to create test cases for each release and then execute them. Later we perform exploratory testing.

In such short release cycles, it’s important that we test as much as possible. I found that we spend almost 30-40% of our time in creating test cases. This is even more when you have long scenarios document. I find creating mind maps instead of documenting test cases saves lot of time.

How do we create mind map in place of test case?

Let us do an example –

Take a scenario of saving a word document. What test cases can we think of?

I’ve listed three here –
1. Save from File menu
2. Save using Ctrl + S
3. Save using clicking save button

Test cases include steps e.g., for scenario 1 –
1. Launch MS word
2. Click on ‘File > New’
3. Type some text (not mandatory)
4. Click on ‘File > Save’
5. Browse a location to save the document
6. Enter a name to save the document
7. Click on ‘Save’ button.
8. Verify that the document is saved.

Similar steps will be documented for test case 2 and 3.

With mind map, this is so simple. All three test cases can be created in lesser time. May be in seconds.
You start with central focus item, then list down all the items to be covered around that central focus item. Then, you start digging into each item till the end.

We are testing MS word, which should be our central focus item. Sub item is the Save functionality – which becomes a node for the central focus item MS word. You list down all the test cases as sub nodes for ‘Save’ node.

‘Save’ is one sub module and you may also have other sub modules like – Print, Send, and Convert etc. When I start creating this mind map, I list down all the items around the central focus item and complete digging into all test cases for ‘Save’ first. When I look back at the entire mind map, I know that I’m still pending to test other sub items. This is the other key advantage is see with mind maps – tracking test coverage.

If a sub-module in a module needs 300 test cases to be created, at the end of test case creation, you may not remember that you just finished one sub module. With mind map, you can easily find which module is uncovered/untested looking at it. Mind map is like entire testing activity on a single image, which helps to know us the status of testing on the module/functionality. It’s like a Dashboard.

Of course, this is not as clear as test cases but the purpose is survived. I found mind maps more useful when I had to document lengthy scenarios.

Accountability is one challenge here. How would one know how many test cases have been executed looking at a mind map? I don’t have answer for this right now. I invite your thoughts on this. For exploratory testing, mind map is an excellent aid.

Another challenge is re-usability. Will mind map created by one tester easily understood by other tester? Creating mind maps should be carefully done so that other testers who may want to retest the module should be able to understand the path we followed to test.

I’m very much against test cases and I want testers to spend time on testing more than creating test cases. Ideally I’d like to see test cases be replaced with mind maps which can be easily learnt and saves lot of time for testers.

-Balu