Software Testing Life Cycle: A Brief Guide
The prominence of software testing has increased several notches for companies all over. And the primary reason behind this is the rapidly rising demand for quality software products and applications.
To implement a software testing process with precision, QA teams need to operate according to the Software Testing Life Cycle. It enables them to prepare for implementation adequately or however, it is required for the desired product.
What is Software Testing Life Cycle?
The Software Testing Life Cycle is a set of tasks designed to gauge and understand the state of a system while making recommendations for improving it. It involves planning, strategizing, and executing test cases.
Phases of STLC:
Every phase of the STLC comes with a set of goals that are intended to identify defects and improve the test coverage. Here are the six phases of the STLC:
· Planning
· Test Case Design
· Test Environment Setup
· Test Execution
· Test Cycle Closure
Requirement Analysis:
Generally, any project begins with the team analyzing software requirements that specify what is expected of it and what the goal is. These requirements include sophisticated business needs and other requirements that detail how the feature will be designed and supported.
System requirements include functional and non-functional specifications that present opportunities to test and validate. In this phase, software testers tend to work both with their own teams and other teams to understand how the process will be implemented.
Requirement Analysis involves identifying what the team needs to carry out the process and analyzing these assessments.
Planning:
Planning is the second phase in the STLC. It is a crucial phase as it sets up the testing process. The QA team here gathers the insights found during requirement analysis to formulate a documented QA strategy.
The QA team also determines the resources and efforts that are meant to evaluate the release. The test plan documentation keeps all the teams informed about how the process will begin.
This plan is particularly helpful if the organization that is launching the product will take part in testing. It would also be sufficient if developers are taking part in the execution of unit tests.
Test Case Design and Development
Once the test plan is in place, testers can begin writing detailed test cases. In this STLC phase, the QA team filters details of the structured tests and includes any test data required to run these tests.
The test case design is a phase where testers must validate the areas defined by requirements and exert their skills, creativity, and how they achieve the given tasks.
Most test cases need to be updated frequently to validate the functionalities of the system. Once these test cases are ready, the team can review them and update the test scripts.
Test Environment Setup
The test environment setup refers to the physical setting where the actual testing takes place. This is a crucial software testing life cycle phase as it requires help from other teams.
Software testers must have access to these bug reports along with the application architecture to support their product. Testers will find it very challenging to do their jobs without it.
Once it is established, testers build the parameters for the test environment that include the hardware, software, frameworks, networks, and test data. In this particular phase, testers manage environment parameters based on what the test case requires.
Carrying out smoke tests in these test environments provides a fair idea of whether the application is ready for proper testing. These smoke tests are part of the deliverables even if they are not completely mandatory.
Test Execution
Test execution is the phase where users finally test the entire product. During this phase, all the test cases are supposed to be executed within the allotted time. The QA team runs a series of automated test scripts to pick up the pace in the process.
Testers are supposed to identify, and report detailed bugs arising from test case execution and log the system’s performance against how it is required to perform.
As developers implement fixes, testers retest the product to ensure new defects do not come up. With several tests piling up in the test execution phase, it becomes crucial to implement automation whenever needed.
Test Cycle Closure
This is the final phase of the STLC where the QA team provides a test cycle closure report to summarize the findings with the team. This report usually involves summaries of the tests and results along with an assessment of the team’s approval.
This phase warrants the QA team to check its deliverables such as details relevant to the process, test strategy, test case documents, and test results. Once this is completed, the team is supposed to deliver incident reports detailing unexpected behavior that they have observed during the process.
Software Testing Services at 91Social:
91Social consists of a dynamic team of testers who are a perfect blend of skill and experience to meet the deliverables and requirements of our clients. We focus on helping companies release quality products that are free of fault.
The current business environment demands every organization to be on the top of its game and 91Social helps companies achieve this.
