Entry and exit criteria

When stop testing?

  • Time = if the release is too close, and the bugs were revealed, QA lead & PM & Dev Lead may decide which bugs can be hot fixed, and which bugs can be moved to the next sprint.
  • Budget, cost
  • All test cases passed, found bugs are fixed and retested

What is entry and exit criteria?

  • Entry criteria gives the prerequisite items that must be completed before testing can begin.
  • Exit criteria defines the items that must be completed before testing can be concluded.

Professional entry checklist

You don’t start testing just because a developer said, "It's done." Entry criteria ensure the environment is stable enough for meaningful testing.

  • Requirements Approved: The User Stories or BRDs are signed off. You can't test if you don't know what "correct" looks like.
  • Environment Ready: A dedicated QA environment is up, running, and matches Production as closely as possible.
  • Test Data Availability: You have the accounts, credit card numbers, or database records needed to execute your cases.
  • Smoke Test Passed: The "Happy Path" works. If the login screen crashes, there is no point in testing the rest of the app.
  • Code Freeze: Developers have finished pushing code to the test branch.

Professional Exit Checklist:

"We ran out of time" is a common reason to stop, but it’s a risky one. Professional Exit Criteria focus on Quality and Coverage. If you don't define Exit Criteria at the beginning of the project, the 'Exit' will be defined by the first person who gets tired or runs out of money.

  • 100% Execution: Every planned test case has been run at least once.
  • Zero Critical/Blocker Bugs: No "Priority 1" bugs remain open. Any remaining bugs must be documented, risk-assessed, and accepted by the Product Manager.
  • Requirement Coverage: Every requirement in the spec has at least one passing test case associated with it.
  • Regression Success: New fixes haven't broken old features (Automated suite is green).
  • User Acceptance (UAT): The actual business users have looked at the product and said, "Yes, this is what I asked for."

How to handle the "Release is Tomorrow" panic

  1. Bug Triage: The Leads (QA, Dev, PM) meet to decide: "If we ship with this bug, will it cost us customers or just be a minor annoyance?"
  2. Known Issues List: We release the software but include "Release Notes" telling the users what is broken and when it will be fixed.
  3. Hotfix Planning: We prepare the fix immediately so it can be pushed an hour after the main release.
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