An Introduction to Software Testing Life Cycle (STLC)

Different phases of software testing life cycle

Requirement Analysis

This is the very first step of STLC. In this step, the QA team is involved in understanding the requirement to get the idea for In Scope Testing . If any ambiguity finds anything which is not understandable then the team meets with the stakeholders to get the detailed knowledge about the requirement.

 Below activities are performed in Requirement Analysis

1.  Identify types of tests to be performed.
2. Gather details about testing priorities, testing focus,
3. Prepare RTM(Requirement Traceability Matrix)
4. Gather information about the environment details where testing is supposed to be performed.

Test Planning

This is the most important and most efficient phase of STLC. In this Phase, all the testing plans and testing strategies are defined. QA Manager defines the testing estimation time and cost for the Testing work. Moreover, The resources, testing environment, test limitation and test schedule are determined.

 Below activities are performed in test planning

1. Test Plan Creation
2. Test Strategy document
3. Test Tool selection
4. Test effort estimation
5. Resource Planning and determine roles and responsibilities

Test Case Creation

In this Phase, Test case creation takes place. Testing team creates the test cases with details. Also, Prepare the test data for the testing. Once the test case creation is completed, it is reviewed and then reworked based on review comments if any. In this stage, TestData is identified, created and identified. Test Data makes the testing easy and saves the time during testing if data is already identified initially for testing.

 Below activities are performed in test case creation

1. Test Case creation
2. Test Case review
3. Identification of Test Data

Test Environment Setup

Test Environment Setup decides the hardware and software conditions under which the software is tested. This phase can be done parallel with the test case development phase. Testing team is not involved in this phase. Development team Provides the testing environment after performing smoke testing of the environment.

 Below activities are performed in test environment setup

1.  Understand the environment setup
2. Understand the required architecture
3. Prepare Software and hardware requirements list for the environment
4. Setup Test Environment and Test Data
5. Perform Smoke Test on the given environment

Test Case Execution

Test Case Execution carried out by the testing team once the test case development and test case environment setup is completed based on the prepared test case in earlier stages. It is real-time validation of products and finding bugs. If any bugs are reported then it is reverted back to the development team for correction and retesting will be performed once it is fixed.

Below activities are performed in Test case execution

1. Execute Test Case
2. Bugs finding and Bugs Reporting
3. Retesting
4. Link Defects to test case in RTM
5. Follow Bug life cycle.

Testing Closure

This is the last stage of STLC in which the process of testing is analyzed. This Phase involves activities like test case completion reporting, test completion matrix and test results. Testing team analyze testing artifacts to identify testing strategies that need to be implemented in the future and , taking lessons from the current test cycle. Basically, the purpose is to remove  process bottlenecks for future test cycles.

Below activities are performed in testing closure

1. Identify cycle completion criteria based on test coverage, time, Cost and  Quality
2. Prepare test metrics
3. Prepare Test closure report
4. Qualitative and quantitative reporting of quality of the product
5. Find out the defect distribution by type and severity based on the test result report