Software Testing Life Cycle

STLC stands for software testing life cycle.The sequence of activities conducted to perform software testing known as Software testing life cycle. It consists of the group of activities to help to certify your software product.

Stages of STLC :-
1)Requirement analysis
2)Test Planning
3)Test case development
4)Environment Setup
5)Test Execution
6)Test cycle closure

Lets explain the all above steps one by one and have a brief description :-

Requirement analysis :- In requirement stage , From a testing point of view,test team studies the requirements needs initially.The QA team may interact with the stake holders like Clients,business analyst, Technical leads  to understand the  requirement is detail.Requirement could be Functional or Non-functional .Functional requirement include(defining what software must do) or Non-functional include (defining software performance/Security availability)

Activities :-i) Identifies types of test to be performed
 ii)Collecting information about testing priorities and focus on them .
iii) Prepare Requirement traceability matrix.
iv) Identify test environment details where testing is supposed to be used.

Test Planning :-In this stage the estimation of cost and efforts will prepared and finalize the test plan . Its Usually done by the senior QA Manager.

Activities :-
i)preparation of test plan document for various types of testing.
ii)test tool selection
iii)Test effort estimation
iv)Training requirement
v) Resource planning and determining roles and responsibilities.

Test case development :- This part involves creation verification and rework of test cases and test scripts. Test data is created , reviewed and then reworked.

 Activities :-
i)Created test cases and if applicable automation scripts.
 ii)Review and baseline test cases and scripts.
iii)Create test data.

Test environment setup:-Under which conditions software and hardware work product is tested is decided by test environment.It can be done parallel with test case development and it is the one of the most critical aspects of testing process.

Activities :
 i)Understand the required architecture and environment setup
ii)prepare hardware and software requirement list for the test environment.
iii) Setup test environment and test data.
iv)Perform smoke test on the build.

Test execution :-During the test execution phase , the testing is done by the testers based on test cases and test plans prepared.If they find any bug then its reported back to development team for correction and after the bugs is corrected by the development team , resting will be performed.

Activities:-
i)Execute tests as per plan
ii)Document test result and log defect for failed cases.
iii) Map defects to test cases in RTM i.e Released To Manufacturing
iv)Retest the defect fixes.
v)Track the defects to closure.

Test cycle closure :- taking lessons from the current test cycle,testing team will meet ,discuss and analyze testing artifacts to identify strategies that have to be implemented in future. the idea is to remove the bottlenecks for the future test cycles.

Activities :-i) Evaluate cycle completion criteria based on time ,test coverage, cost, software, critical business, objectives and quantity.
ii) prepare test metrics based on the above parameters.
iii)Document the learning out of the project.
iv) testing closure report.
v)Qualitative and quantitative reporting of quality of the work product to the customer

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