This document provides a central artifact to govern the strategic approach of the test effort; it defines the general approach to be employed when testing the software and when evaluating the results of that testing. Planning documents will refer to the test strategy regarding the governing of detailed testing work.

It also provides visible confirmation to test-effort stakeholders that adequate consideration has been given to the governing of the test effort and, where appropriate, to have those stakeholders approve the strategy.

The Test Plan contains the following topics:

	Description of the testing approach.
	Identifying and justifying unit, integration, UAT, operational readiness, and beta tests
	Measuring the extent of testing
	Dependencies, assumptions and constraints
	Notification and escalation procedures
	Measures and metrics
	Testing tasks
	Suspension criteria and resumption of testing
	Approvals.

Scroll down to the IT Test Plan example below.