Software Testing Life Cycle [STLC]
Anila Vithanala

Software Testing Life Cycle [STLC]

What is STLC?

The Software testing life cycle is a sequence of different testing processes that are to be executed maximum results from software testing team. STLC is one of the major part of SDLC. As soon as development stage is done, the testers are ready with test cases and they will start execution.

01 Requirements

During this stage, Testing team studies the requirement document from the testing point of view and identifies the testable requirements. Testing team need to interact with various stakeholders [ Business team, Technical Leads, Client etc] to grasp the necessities. Requirements may be Functional or Non-Functional.

02 Test Plan

Test Planning is most significant phase of Software testing life cycle. This phase also called as Test Strategy phase. during this phase typically Test Manager or Test Lead involved to see the hassle and value estimates for entire project. The results of Test Planning phase are going to be Test Plan or Test strategy & Testing Effort estimation documents. Once test planning phase is completed the QA team can start with test cases development activity.

03 Test Design & Review

This is the stage of STLC which involves analysing and reviewing the requirement documents, risk analysis reports, and other design specifications. Along with the above, it also involves setting up the test infrastructure, creation of high-level test cases.

Also, the Requirement Traceability Matrix (RTM) is calculated. RTM is an industry-accepted format for tracking requirements where every test case is mapped with the requirement. Using Requirement Traceability Matric testing team can track backward and forward traceability.

04 Test Case Preparation

This is the stage of software testing life cycle where testing people writes the detailed test cases. Together with test cases, testers also prepare the test data if it’s necessity for testing. Once the test cases are written then it’s reviewed by PEER members or QA lead.

• Project Name : SYMPHISYS
• Module Name : ARTICLE
• Reference Document : SYMPHISYS.DOC
• Created by : ANILA
• Date of creation : 11-02-2020
• Date of review : 11-02-2020

• TEST CASE ID
• TEST SCENARIO
• TEST CASE
• PRE-CONDITION
• TEST STEPS
• TEST DATA
• EXPECTED RESULT
• POST CONDITION
• ACTUAL RESULT
• STATUS [FAIL/PASS]

05 Test Execution

After the test case preparation is done, test execution phase gets started. In this phase testing team will start executing all the test cases based on prepared test cases in the earlier step.

06 Test / Bug Report

Once all the test cases are executed, most of the defects detected by testing team. The use of defect report is to state the problem clearly, so that developers can replicate the defect again and fix it.

07 Bug fixes / Regression Test

Regression testing is ideally executed anytime a previously discovered issue has been fixed. Regression tests are also typically performed after any changes are made to the code base.

The frequency of regression testing is different for different projects, but most projects perform regression testing on a schedule: at the end of every day, after every change, weekly, bi-weekly, etc. In General, the more often regression testing done, the more issues can be discovered and resolved, and the more stable and production-ready the application becomes.

08 Software Release

The Software Release stage consists of different stages that depict the security of a bit software and the measure of development it requires before the final release. Every version of software product generally experiences a phase where new features are included, or the alpha stage or the beta stage, or the steady stage.

Alpha : A small subset of client picked to test the product.

Beta : The testing is done at client site, for getting tested by the proposed clients or the user in the real condition at client place. It may be the final testing stage before the item is discharged in the market.