Test Planning, Monitoring and Control
As with any project (even going on holiday) planning is required for its eventual success.
Test planning typically considers the goals to be achieved, and the process to be used to achieve them. There is a concept of a blue-sky approach, where each project starts with confidence that things will go as planned. This, as you may be aware does not always happen, so realistic test planning considers the constraints of the situation.
Test plans may be revisited based on feedback from monitoring and control activities.
It is important to keep track of progress throughout the project. This is test monitoring.
Should things not be on track, this leads to test control – doing something about it.