LEARN. PRACTICE. GROW.Concept and mechanism
A test plan needs to connect priorities with capacity, environments, data, and dependencies. The quadrant model helps discuss business and technology perspectives, both to guide development and evaluate the product. Its numbering does not establish a mandatory sequence. For a service at risk of saturation, a capacity experiment may be useful before the complete interface exists. For an ambiguous fee rule, examples agreed with business may take priority. Also record who receives results and which decision they support. A useful report distinguishes observed behavior, failures awaiting investigation, unexercised areas, and residual risk; a single percentage hides those differences.
Guided application
Imagine 120 planned checks: 90 pass, 10 fail, and 20 are blocked. The pass rate among executed checks is 90%, but positive evidence covers 75% of planned checks. Neither value demonstrates that the most important risk is controlled. If a failure affects authorization, highlight it despite many green checks. To improve the process, define a measurable hypothesis: preparing data before execution should reduce blocked time. Compare equivalent periods and observe side effects, including maintenance effort. A test that passes after a retry should remain identifiable as intermittent. Repeating helps gather evidence, but deleting the first failure makes the metric less informative.
90/100 = 90% executed; 90/120 = 75% planned.
Common pitfalls
Hidden denominator; quadrants treated as phases; retries erasing failures.
Related topics: Strategy, risk, and regression · Team, feedback, and specialists · Examples, criteria, and small deliveries
Show evidence, gaps, and the decision required.
Reference: Using the Agile Testing Quadrants · CTAL-AT v2.0 (2026)