Software Testing Life Cycle(STLC) in Software Testing
Software Testing Life Cycle(STLC) is a process of activities performed during bug detection to bug resolve. There are multiple phases in STLC. Each phase in STLC has specific action to be performed. Below is a diagram for phases involved in STLC :
So basically there are 6 phases involved in Software Testing Life Cycle.
1. Requirement Analysis:
This is the first phase in STLC. In this phase, all the requirements gets collected. Testing team study and analyzes those requirements from the testing point of view. In this phase team verifies what to be tested, how it to be tested and testable requirements. It involves BRS – means Business Requirement Specification document. In this phase team may interact with client, Business Analyst, System architect, Team manager, Team Lead etc. to understand and verify requirements in detail form.
2. Test Planning:
This is the second phase of STLC, where all the testing plans gets defined. In this phase, test team focuses on planning strategy, it’s approach, Risk management, Estimated cost and efforts etc. It defines the testing process overview, scope of the projects, tools required for testing, test schedule, environment setup etc.
3. Test Case Development:
This is the third phase of STLC in which test cases are created. Test team makes a overall plan on test case criteria, test case conditions. Test case contains test data, procedures, test steps, preconditions, Actual result, Expected Result, etc. If required, any automation script also get’s created here. Once test cases are ready then these test cases are reviewed by any QA Lead.
4. Environment Setup:
This is the fourth phase of STLC, where all the setup requirements needed for Testing gets tested or verified. It contains Testing tools required, testing up any server connection if required. In this phase testing team is not involved, either the developer or the customer creates the testing environment. Based on the product requirement, the list of software and hardware requirement list gets created. Once environment setup gets ready, then smoke tests are performed to check that environments are working as expected with all intended functionality.
5. Test Execution:
This is the fifth phase of STLC, where the whole product testing gets done. This phase is carried out by Testing team. The process involves Test script execution, test script maintenance and bug reporting. When bugs are reported then it sends back to development team for rechecking and redevelopment. Once bug gets fixed by development team then it again sends for retesting. Expected result are compared to actual result.
6. Test Cycle Closure:
This is the final phase of STLC where final test result report is prepared. It includes test completion report, collection of test results etc.
So this is overall cycle of Software Testing and the activities going on inside it.
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