What's the purpose of the Master/Child Test Plan structure in RQM?

Taly Hotimsky (271●42●57) | asked Aug 13 '14, 10:31 a.m.

From a logical perspective I understand why we would have Master/Child Test Plans.

However, from a tools perspective RQM doesn't support the logical notiion (or not as I'd expect anyway).

After defining 1 Master with 3 Children I expected:

1. Progress from the Children (as displayed in the Test Plan Progress bars) to roll up to the Master - didn't happen

2. Artifacts referenced in the Children (Requirements Collections Covered, Test Cases, Test Case Execution Records, etc) to be shown at the Master - didn't happen

3. Definitions from the Master (schedule, environments) to be distributed to the Children - didn't happen

Are my expectations all wrong? Is my system not working as expected (v4.0.6)? Or, more broadly, if it's working as designed, what's the true value in setting the Master/Child structure in RQM?

Accepted answer

permanent link

Antonio Napoles (286●1) | answered Aug 18 '14, 1:03 p.m.
JAZZ DEVELOPER

Hi Taly,

Your points look very interesting to be considered in an enhancement, specially point 2. Currently, there are two main features evaluated using master test plans and their children.

-Quality objectives. Optionally you can choice to roll up children test plan objectives to be evaluated on master plan. Extracted from: http://pic.dhe.ibm.com/infocenter/clmhelp/v4r0m6/topic/com.ibm.rational.test.qm.doc/topics/t_create_master_testplan.html
"Quality objectives include the overall quality goals for a release, or the entrance or exit criteria. There are several automatically calculated quality objectives, such as Execution Record Pass Rate and the Number of Open Sev1 Defects allowed. Roll up means that when the child objectives are added to the master, the children are included in the calculation. For example, assume that the exit criteria for the master specifies that there must be fewer than five severity-one defects. If the master already has two severity-one defects, and a child has four, then the exit criteria for the master cannot be met if you include the child quality objectives."

-Reporting. You kind of generate the reports mentioned in comment 2 on intelligence reports. See the link for details:
http://pic.dhe.ibm.com/infocenter/clmhelp/v4r0m6/topic/com.ibm.rational.test.qm.doc/topics/qm_c_mstr_chld_rels.html

regards,
Napoles

Taly Hotimsky selected this answer as the correct answer

Comments

Taly Hotimsky commented Aug 18 '14, 3:29 p.m. | edited unknown

Hi Napoles.

Thank you.

Are you aware of existing enhancement requests for the items I listed above?

We'll probably be building custom reports, but without them it seems to me that the only out-of-the-box use of this feature (the quality objectives) is very shallow in comparison to what it could be.

Taly Hotimsky commented Aug 18 '14, 3:32 p.m.

Hi Napoles.

Thanks.

Do you know if there are existing enhancement requests for these? If not I can open them.

We'll probably be building custom reports, but without them it seems to me that the only out-of-the-box usage of this feature (the quality objectives) is very shallow in comparison to what it could be.

One other answer

Most liked answers ↑|Newest answers|Oldest answers

permanent link

Antonio Napoles (286●1) | answered Aug 20 '14, 10:58 a.m.
JAZZ DEVELOPER

Hi Taly,

I was not aware of any enhancement about it. I have created one now: Improve master and children test plans user experience (121661).
You can either follow the resolution in it or create a new enhancement if it does not fit your requests. Also feel free to add any comment in the enhancement.

regards,
Napoles

Comments

Taly Hotimsky commented Aug 21 '14, 9:18 a.m.

Thanks!

I added some considerations and subscribed myself to it.

It's all about the answers!

Related questions

What's the purpose of the Master/Child Test Plan structure in RQM?

Accepted answer

One other answer

Your answer