Improve Test Planning with a Product Blueprint

Helping yourself find edge cases earlier

One of the things I always struggled with was sitting in a Planning meeting and someone saying: “Anything else from QA?”.

It’s such an open ended question. But most of the time, they wanted to know what product edge cases were missing.

As I got to know the product, I got better at remembering edge cases on the spot, but it was still difficult remembering them all within 10 seconds.

So I created myself a product blueprint.

Product Blueprint

Working at JustPark, there are many actions a driver or space owner can take, from logging in, to parking, to paying.

I therefore started by mapping out the key product features at a high level, following a left to right journey from a driver parking to a space owner receiving their booking.

Here’s what it looks like:

Now when I’m in a Planning meeting and someone asks: “Anything else from QA?”, I’m easily able to say things like:

• Will the user need to be logged in?
• What if someone cancels or extends their booking?
• What payment methods are we supporting?

Not only did it help me plan better, but I took it to the next level and got the Product team involved. Together we turned it into a product impact assessment.

Product Impact Assessment

At the beginning of a project it’s hard to think about all the areas a new feature could affect. I therefore worked with the Product team on using my blueprint for just this!

As an example: We are working on adding a new booking type.

Using a key to mark the things that need changing (green), need excluding (red) or need regression (orange), we’re able to work with the Product team and help get a full picture of this change.

Using the example and screenshot above, we can now take this into a Planning meeting and easily see that:

• Green: This new booking requires changes to driver search, booking details and the refund policy.
• Red: We know that we need to exclude extensions and changing vehicle. We also need to exclude certain payment methods like Apple and Google Pay.
• Orange: We need to regression test space owner refunds.

It really help the whole team get a full overview of the change. Now I can go write some awesome test cases!