Read it and ask whether it changes what anybody actually does.
A good test strategy explains the important risks, how the organisation intends to get evidence about them, where responsibilities sit, what environments and data are needed, what gets automated, which specialist testing matters and how release decisions will be supported.
A bad one contains phrases like ‘shift-left quality enablement’, a pyramid somebody copied from LinkedIn and six pages describing defect statuses.
If your strategy is mostly shelf decoration, we can review what you have and tell you which parts should drive real behaviour and which parts can go in the bin.
Test the strategy against reality
Pick a current delivery risk. Can the strategy tell you how it should be addressed? Pick a major production incident. Would following the strategy have made it more likely to be found? Ask three team members what the strategy changes about their work. If nobody knows, you own a document, not a strategy. That is the warning behind a test strategy nobody actually follows: the document can pass its reviews while actual behaviour stays the same.
It should also make trade-offs. What will you not test? Which risks justify specialist work? Where is automation worth the maintenance? When is independent testing required? Strategies that promise everything usually guide nothing.
Beware consultancy wallpaper
The testing industry has a particular talent for charging serious money for maturity models, heat maps and target operating models that conclude an organisation should ‘improve governance, increase automation and shift quality left’. You could get that advice from a fridge magnet.
If you want us to review your strategy, tell us what you have and give us a bit of context. We can tell you what is useful, what is waffle, what is missing and what we would actually change. If you do not have a strategy, we can help you build one that people can use without requiring a translator.
A strategy should help you say no
One sign of a useful strategy is that it gives teams permission not to do low-value work. It should explain where risk justifies depth and where lighter evidence is acceptable. If every section ends with ‘all testing will be performed as appropriate’, the document has achieved diplomatic neutrality and nothing else.
It should also survive change. A strategy built around one vendor tool, one project methodology or a fixed organisational chart will age badly. Principles about risk, evidence, independence, feedback and decision-making travel much better.
The best strategies are short enough to use and specific enough to argue with. If nobody ever disagrees with yours, it may not be making any choices.