---
title: "[Article] The Test Feasibility Matrix"
url: "https://osherove.com/blog/2005/7/25/article-the-test-feasibility-matrix.md"
canonical: "https://osherove.com/blog/2005/7/25/article-the-test-feasibility-matrix.html"
published: "2005-07-25T01:21:00"
updated: "2005-07-25T01:21:00"
tags: ["Agile", "Agile Related", "Testing Guidelines"]
author: "Roy Osherove"
description: "One of the toughest questions in projects that contain legacy code that would like to write unit tests from part of that code (it may need to change) are: \"Where should I start?\" When one of my clients faced this…"
usage: "Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page)."
license: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
---

# \[Article\] The Test Feasibility Matrix

By Roy Osherove July 25, 2005 In [Agile](https://osherove.com/blog/category/agile), [Agile Related](https://osherove.com/blog/category/agile-related), [Testing Guidelines](https://osherove.com/blog/category/testing-guidelines)

**Historical article** · Originally published July 25, 2005; technical details may be outdated.

One of the toughest questions in projects that contain legacy code that would like to write unit tests from part of that code (it may need to change) are: "Where should I start?"

When one of my clients faced this question a while ago I came up with a small formula to help understand where we should focus our testing efforts on. I call it the "[Test Feasibility Matrix](http://weblogs.asp.net/rosherove/pages/The-Testing-Feasibility-Matrix.aspx)"

## More in Agile

[All posts in Agile](https://osherove.com/blog/category/agile)

- Jun 11, 2006

    ### [Architecting in an Agile World - My ArcCast with Ron Jabobs in online](https://osherove.com/blog/2006/6/11/architecting-in-an-agile-world-my-arccast-with-ron-jabobs-in.html)

- Jun 7, 2006

    ### [News: TestDriven, SideKick, Expression Evaluators and Security to boot](https://osherove.com/blog/2006/6/7/news-testdriven-sidekick-expression-evaluators-and-security.html)

- Apr 3, 2005

    ### [Naming standards for unit tests](https://osherove.com/blog/2005/4/3/naming-standards-for-unit-tests.html)


---

## About the author

**Roy Osherove**: Senior Solutions Architect at AWS working on AI for production and AI-driven development; author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership, with about 20 years of consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery.

### Sites

- [RobotPaper](https://robotpaper.ai/): This blog: AI patterns and anti-patterns, AI and coding agents, and engineering leadership.
- [osherove.com](https://osherove.com): Roy's personal site. Author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership; consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery, plus about 20 years of blog posts.
- [The Art of Unit Testing](https://www.artofunittesting.com): The Art of Unit Testing, 3rd Edition (Manning): readable, maintainable, trustworthy unit tests, plus TDD workshops in C#, JavaScript, Java and Kotlin.
- [5whys.com](https://www.5whys.com): Roy's writing on software team leadership: self-organizing teams, surviving chaos, learning mode and the Elastic Leadership model.
- [Pipeline Driven](https://pipelinedriven.org): Continuous delivery and DevOps practices: build patterns, pipeline-friendly testing, DevOps metrics and enterprise DevOps.
- [Elastic Leadership](https://www.elasticleadership.com): Elastic Leadership, Roy's framework for software team leaders (survival, learning and self-organizing modes).

### Social

- X: https://x.com/royosherove
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/osherove/

### Contact

- Contact form: https://forms.gle/jQSx5KoXvrVA1JCK7

### License

Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page). License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/