Unless your protagonist is Mulan, it's piss easy to pass the Bechdel test. Which is why it's annoying when people ignore it for no good reason.
Well it should be ignored, in fact its ability to remain accurate relies on people ignoring it. While following it doesn't improve the quality of fiction.
Just make well written female characters with their own arcs that they solve by their own power... DONE!
Actually that is usually my three step requirements! Just for fun I am adding two more.
1) Make the female character competent within the sphere of the fiction.
2) Give her a goal, arc, or plotline separate from our main character.
and
3) Let her solve it by her own strength, it doesn't nessisarily mean she does it solo. It only means that someone else doesn't solve it for her.
4) She, at no point, becomes incompetent.
5) If she becomes indisposed, it must further her character or the scene independently from our protagonist.
So we have Astrid for example... She passes 1 and 2... But fails 3 (Guess being a Warrior doesn't matter anymore)... Fails 4 and fails 5. She goes from wanting to be a warrior to just being chumped. Had she done really well against the dragon but ultimately it just wasn't enough in that movie... She would have passed 3, 4, and 5.
It is these five rules that I judge fiction and not the Bechdel test. So long as the female character passes those, it gets my thumbs up!