A TPS report ("test procedure specification") is a document used by a quality assurance group or individual, particularly in software engineering, that describes the testing procedures and the testing process.
A TPS report ("test procedure specification") is a document used by a quality assurance group or individual, particularly in software engineering, that describes the testing procedures and the testing process.
The official definition and creation is provided by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) as follows:
IEEE 829 – Test Procedure Specification
The Test Procedures are developed from both the Test Design and the Test Case Specification. The document describes how the tester will physically run the test, the physical set-up required, and the procedure steps that need to be followed. The standard defines ten procedure steps that may be applied when running a test. [1]
Its use in popular culture increased after the comedic 1999 film Office Space . In the movie, multiple managers and coworkers inquire about an error that protagonist Peter Gibbons (played by Ron Livingston) makes in omitting a cover sheet to send with his "TPS reports". It is used by Gibbons as an example that he has eight different bosses to whom he directly reports. According to the film's writer and director Mike Judge, the abbreviation stood for "Test Program Set" in the movie. [2]
After Office Space, "TPS report" has come to connote pointless, mindless paperwork, [3] and an example of "literacy practices" in the work environment that are "meaningless exercises imposed upon employees by an inept and uncaring management" and "relentlessly mundane and enervating". [4]