Software Testing Life Cycle - STLC

 

 “Software testers succeed where others fail.” – Anonymous.

Software Testing Life Cycle is a process to conduct software testing to ensure quality goals are met and implemented. As the name stands, it is a cyclic process to ensure quality gates are met and repeated till the product is deemed suitable for release.

Below is the Software testing life cycle phases:

Requirement Analysis

It is the first phase of software testing where testers study and analyze the available specification and requirements. In this phase usually, a requirement document is studied which has been created during SDLC. From the document, the testers analyze both functional as well as non-functional in order to get the testable requirements information. 

Entry Criteria

Requirement specification, Architecture document of the application, Software Development Document must be available for planning this phase.

Activities

1. List of queries and requirements needed to be clarified Product Owner, Architect, Test Lead/Manager, Stakeholders/Business Analysts.
2. Understanding of the application and the final outcomes.
3. Types of test can be performed (Frontend, Mid, Backend, Performance, Security)
4. List of environments and tools to be used for testing.

Exit Criteria

1. Automation feasibility report (approved by the team and/or customer if automation is not feasible)
2. Requirement traceability document

Test Planning

Test plan creation is the crucial phase of STLC where all the testing strategies are defined. Tester determines the estimated effort and cost of the entire project.

Entry Criteria

1. Requirement specification documents
2. Automation feasibility report
3. Requirement traceability matrix

Activities

1. Preparing test plan, test strategy
2. Define test approach
3. Define testing techniques and types of testing
4. Estimating testing efforts
5. Defining resources, roles, and responsibilities

Exit Criteria

1. Efforts estimated
2. Approved test plan, test strategy.

Test Case Development

In this phase, the QA team writes test cases. They also write scripts for automation if required. Verification of both the test cases and test scripts is done by peers. The creation of Test Data is done in this phase.

Entry Criteria

1. Requirement specification documents
2. Test plan, test strategy
3. Automation feasibility report

Activities

1. Creating test cases
2. Review test cases
3. Preparing test data (if applicable)
4. Creating automation scripts (if applicable)

Exit Criteria

1. Test cases created and reviewed

Environment Setup

This phase includes the setup or installation process of software and hardware which is required for testing the application. In this phase, the integration of the third-party application is also carried out if required in the project.

After setting up the required software and hardware the installation of the build is tested. Once the installation of build is successful and complete then the Test Data is generated.

After the creation of Test data, the Smoke testing is executed on the build in order to check whether the basic functionalities are working fine or not. This phase can be done in parallel with the Test Case Development phase.

Entry Criteria

1. Requirement specification document, architecture document

Activities

1. Understanding the design and architecture of the application
2. Environment setup procedures (installation, deployment, etc)
3. Creating test data (if applicable)
4. Executing smoke testing
5. Accepting/Rejecting of build based on the smoke test.

Exit Criteria

1. Ready for testing
2. All needed environment setup procedures are completed (build deployed, software installed, etc.)
3. Test data is created
4. Smoke testing is done

Test Execution

Before starting the Test Execution phase the Test Environment setup should be ready. In the Test Execution phase, the test cases are executed in the testing environment.

While executing the test cases the QA team may find bugs that will be reported against that test case. This bug is fixed by the developer and is retested by the QA.

Entry Criteria

1. Documents such as Test Plan, Test strategy, Test scripts, and Test cases are ready
2. The test environment is ready (Feature is implemented, merged, and available on a test environment)
3. Test data is ready
4. Smoke test pass

Activities

1. Test case execution
2. Logging defects for failed test cases
3. Linking defect with failed test cases
4. Update test cases if needed or create new
5. Fixed defects are retested (and closed if working as expected)
6. Regression testing

Exit Criteria

1. All planned test cases are executed
2. Test cases are updated with results
3. All found defects are reported

Test Closure

Test closure activity starts as soon as the Test Execution phase is completed.

QA team will meet and discuss testing outputs; the goal of such meetings is to learn lessons and outline best practices.

Entry Criteria

1. All documents and reports related to software. 

Activities

1. Evaluation of test completion
2. Gathering metrics

Exit Criteria

1. Test Closure report and approvals

Sources:

• http://tryqa.com/
• https://www.javatpoint.com/