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Core Performance Testing Principle:

Context

Overview

For a successful performance testing project, both the approach to testing performance and the testing itself must be relevant to the context of the project. Without an understanding of the project context, performance testing is bound to focus on the items that the performance tester or test team assumes must be important as opposed to those that truly are important; frequently leading to wasted time, frustration and conflicts.

The project context is nothing more than those things that are, or may become, relevant to achieving project success. It may include, but is not limited to; the overall vision or intent of the project, performance testing objectives, performance success criteria, the development life-cycle, the project schedule, the project budget, the available tools and environments, the skill set of the performance tester and the team, the priority of detected performance concerns and the business impact of deploying an application that performs poorly.

Sources of Context

Some of the virtually infinate sources of context that is, or at least could be, relevant to a performance testing project include:

  • Project Vision

  • Purpose of the System

  • Customer or User Expectations

  • Business Drivers

  • Reasons for Testing Performance

  • Value Performance Testing Brings to the Project

  • Project Management and Staffing

  • Process

  • Compliance Criteria

  • Project Schedule

Learn more through PerfTestPlus Training

This topic is covered in the following PTP training courses:

Content adapted from:

Performance Testing Guidance for Web Applications

 



by: J.D. Meier, Scott Barber, Carlos Farre, Prashant Bansode, and Dennis Rea
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