The following are some of the steps to consider:

- Obtain requirements, functional design, and internal design specifications and other necessary documents

- Obtain budget and schedule requirements

- Determine project-related personnel and their responsibilities, reporting requirements, required standards and processes (such as release processes, change processes, etc.)

- Identify application's higher-risk aspects, set priorities, and determine scope and limitations of tests

- Determine test approaches and methods - unit, integration, functional, system, load, usability tests, etc.

- Determine test environment requirements (hardware, software, communications, etc.)