Prior to commencing performance testing, it is recommended a kick-off workshop with all the relevant stakeholders is planned to gather all the information you require before embarking on performance testing and to enable the creation a Performance test plan.
This article explores the key outputs/questions that should be asked during a performance kick-off workshop. These primarily consist of the following areas:
Detail the primary and secondary objectives of the performance testing e.g. the primary objective is to verify that the system can handle the current (200 concurrent users) and future user load projections (400 concurrent users). Secondary objective is to find the performance limits of the system and identify any memory leaks.
Detail what is in scope i.e. What systems are being performance tested and what tests are in scope? Note it is useful to define what is not in scope so there are no areas of contention.
Detail what the performance test requirements are to meet the objectives i.e. What types of test are required? (Load, Spike, Stress, Soak, Volume etc.)
Detail what the measurable success criteria is, for instance, this could be the target response times for each type of transaction.
Detail any risks, issues, assumptions, and dependencies that are identified in the workshop.
Detail each role and their responsibility that will be involved in the performance testing.
Detail each business process that will be performance tested.
Detail the user profiles to be performance tested i.e. types of user, no of users, business processes performed and process volumes i.e. average transactions per hour.
Detail each environment that will be used during the test preparation and test execution phases. Note it may be that a system test environment could be used for the scripting purposes and a DR environment for the actual execution.
Identify a planned schedule during the workshop i.e. when the preparation and execution phases will take place
In summary, to gather the above information a kick-off workshop should be arranged. Note if this is not possible several meetings will need to be held with the stakeholders, architects etc. to collect the appropriate information to enable the creation of the performance test plan.
To find out how SQA Consulting can assist you with your performance testing needs contact us.
