I’ve had many chats with testing peers who chose to invest (or maybe waste) their time explaining why writing down test cases upfront is a waste of good testing efforts, and why it is simply better to test and then choose what to report or communicate upfront.

Since I’ve had to do this again lately I thought it might be a good chance to recount why I think that the vast majority of times (not all times) it is better, maybe even essential, to document your test cases upfront.