In financial services, going live with inadequately tested systems isn't just a quality issue — it's a regulatory risk, a financial risk, and a reputational risk. Yet test management is consistently the most under-invested discipline in FS programme delivery. This framework fixes that by giving you the complete test management operating model in a box.
From test strategy through UAT sign-off to post-go-live defect management, every template has been shaped by the specific demands of testing in regulated environments: audit trails, regulatory sign-off gates, and the evidence packs that supervisors expect.
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Testing in financial services has unique requirements that generic test management templates don't address. You need traceability from requirements through test cases to defect resolution. You need evidence packs that satisfy internal audit and external regulators. You need UAT processes that engage business stakeholders who view testing as "IT's problem." And you need go/no-go criteria that actually mean something when the go-live date is a regulatory deadline.
This framework addresses all of these. It's not a theoretical testing methodology — it's the practical operating model that test managers need to run testing effectively in a financial services environment, from day one of a programme through post-implementation review.
Comprehensive test strategy covering scope, approach, test levels (unit, integration, system, UAT, regression), tool strategy, environment requirements, and risk-based testing approach. Includes the regulatory-specific considerations: data protection in test environments, production data masking, and the compliance sign-off requirements at each test gate.
Detailed test plan template linking business requirements to test conditions to test cases. Includes traceability matrix template, test data requirements specification, and test case templates for functional, non-functional, regression, and integration testing. Covers the evidence format that auditors expect.
End-to-end defect lifecycle covering logging, triage, prioritisation, assignment, resolution, verification, and closure. Includes severity/priority matrix calibrated for FS (where a reconciliation break is severity 1 and a UI cosmetic issue is severity 4), SLA definitions, and escalation triggers.
UAT playbook covering business tester onboarding, test execution guidance, defect reporting for non-technical users, and the formal sign-off process. Includes the UAT completion checklist and sign-off authority matrix. Designed to make UAT manageable for business stakeholders who have day jobs.
Go/no-go decision support pack covering test execution summary, defect metrics, outstanding risk assessment, known issues log, and conditional go-live recommendations. The format steering committees need to make informed go-live decisions — not just a dashboard of pass/fail percentages.
Test environment setup, refresh, and teardown procedures. Covers environment booking, data provisioning, configuration management, and the access controls required in regulated environments. Includes the coordination checklist for when you're sharing environments across multiple workstreams.
Test managers and QA leads running testing for financial services system implementations, migrations, or regulatory change programmes. Programme managers who need to establish a test management function quickly. Business stakeholders responsible for UAT who need structure and support. And internal audit teams who want to see that testing is being managed to a professional standard.
Yes. The test strategy and test plan templates accommodate both manual and automated test execution. The framework is execution-method agnostic — the governance, defect management, and reporting layers apply regardless of whether test cases are executed manually, via Selenium, or through API testing tools.
The framework supports both traditional (phase-gated) and Agile (continuous) testing approaches. For Agile teams, the test strategy includes guidance on embedding testing within sprints, the defect tracker works with sprint-based workflows, and the completion reporting adapts to iteration-level and release-level views.
The test strategy template includes sections for non-functional testing (performance, security, disaster recovery). The test plan templates cover non-functional requirements. However, detailed performance test scripting and security penetration testing are specialist disciplines that sit outside this framework's scope.
The framework is aligned with ISTQB terminology and testing principles but isn't tied to any specific methodology. It draws on TMap's structured testing approach and ISTQB's test process definitions. If your organisation uses a specific testing standard, these templates can be adapted to align with it.