Embodiments of the invention include a test case that is encapsulated defining its relationship with other such encapsulated test cases. An encapsulated test case may be explicitly associated with one or more parent test cases. Additionally, or alternatively, a test case embodying aspects of the present invention may be explicitly associated with one or more child test cases. Through such explicit relationships between test cases a complex hierarchical structure of test cases can be quickly and efficiently created. Further aspects of the invention, which may be incorporated in some embodiments, include an encapsulated test case which, when associated with other encapsulated test case, results in an explicit tree-like hierarchical structure of test cases being defined. In further embodiments of the present invention, a test case (encapsulated or conventional) may be associated with a test case association property. The test case association property explicitly defines the relationship between a parent test case and a child test case. That is, the test case association property defines a bi-directional (i.e., two way) association between a parent and child test case. In one embodiment, the test case association property is embodied in an object (such as, for example, a JAVA language object). In this embodiment, a selected test case may be associated with one or more test case association property objects wherein each test case association property object describes the relationship for only one parent test of the selected test case and the relationship for only child test case of the selected test case.