When to Write Test Plan in Agile/Scrum

[ambi ambii]

Hi All,

I am in a team that follows Agile/Scrum methodology. We follow 2-weekly sprint and do our sprint plannig meetings before starting any new sprint. I've question regarding Test Plan. When a test plan should be written for a project?
Should that be before starting any sprint ?
Can we write a Test Plan for each story ?
Can we write test plan for sprint backlog stories?
I know this may sound weird as my understanding says that a Test Plan should only be written for a big piece of work or a project. It can be Agile or waterfall should not make any difference. Can we write a test plan for each story.

Please clarify as few testers in our team believe that a test plan can be written before a start of every sprint and for each story.. Not sure how will that happen.

Thanks
Ambi

[Tom Reilly]

As software development is an empirical process, you will never know everything about the project until the end of the project. Start writing your test plan when you have enough knowledge to start writing it and refine it throughout the SDLC. When you can start writing the test plan depends on who is writing it. For example, the software architect or scrum master can probably start earlier than your testing team can.

[Ilja Preuss]

What are you writing the test plan for? What will you do with it, once you have it?

[ambi ambii]

Thats why Iam confused . Do we actually need a test plan for 2 weekly sprint . I've read many articles but coudn't find the exact solutionn to it. If anyone has a fair knowledge or experirnce of how and when to write a test plan. Ima still not up for writing a test plan for every story...

Thanks

[Ilja Preuss]

Well, I'd say, the important thing is that you write *tests*.

If you don't know what you would do with a test plan, I'd suggest to try an experiment and see what happens if you simply do without it. And once you actually miss something important, you will have a much better idea of what you need.