What is a Charter?

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1

I have never heard this before. Is this something from Europe? I am from the US.

Thomas

2

At my company, we use them to lay out a project. The what, why, and how (without specific technical details). This makes acceptance criteria, and perhaps more importantly what is not in scope very clear.

3

Hey!
So the answer to this depends on whether you mean:

  • a Test Charter (which is a means of focusing and structuring your exploratory testing on investigating a specific target area to uncover information about specific risks).
    or
  • a Project Charter (which sets the scope and objectives at a holistic scale for a project).

IMHO, in the context of test charters, they are essential. Without them your exploratory testing will be ad-hoc and unstructured, and it’d be really hard to show your exploratory testing too.

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4

Check out this 99 second video that explains what Test Charters are, some examples, the value of using charters and some pitfalls to watch out for too. :slightly_smiling_face:

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5

Hi there,

I am now just referring to the Test Charter, since this is the only way I used it so far.

I am using it for exploratory testing. So far tried different designs, styles, approaches. Basically I apply it when I want to note something down prior and/or during the test session to ensure myself I cover the areas I want to go through. But I also use it as kind of documentation in case someone of my team gets curious and wants to know what I tested and what not.
So the ways I used it

  • Paper and pen, great for quick scribbles and doodle-lovers like me. But not so good for paperless documentation, easy searching and sharing with others if working remotely (Covid19 made this pretty clear to me)
  • Test Charter form, used something I found and adapted it to our internal needs. Looks professional but was not really used neither by me nor by the team. I can’t put my finger on, it just seems not to fit properly.
  • Test Cases in our system, noting down some keywords rather than too much details. Part of the test case pool, nice if it could/should/must be used for regression testing
  • Mindmaps, atm my favorite. I am able to quickly note done things, they structure kind of by themself. I edit them during testing, using little emojis for test result tracking. It is easy accessible, can be shared with others, and is a documentation which needs no extra typing. I include it also in (remote) pair testing.
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6

Hi
According to my understanding Charter is a kind of tool that is used for exploratory testing and using this tool stakeholders define the scope of a project. I think it has some particular template also to develop a charter like we do in project management too.

Thanks
Aatisha

7

A statement of test objectives,and possibly test ideas about how to test.Test charters are used in exploratory testing .