Software Testing - Steps

Software testing is an integral part of software development life cycle (SDLC). It not only ensures quality of software but also helps in reducing its cost by detecting bugs at the early phases of SDLC and preventing defect leakage in the production.

The testing phase in the SDLC is governed by the software testing life cycle (STLC). STLC comprises of the testing steps listed below −

Evaluate the Development Plan

In this step, testers go through the project and development plans, and evaluate them. Based on that evaluation, the testers get an idea about the effort that may be required for completing the project.

Evaluate Requirements

In this step, the testers thoroughly analyzes all the requirements, comprehends them, and identifies those requirements which are unclear, not in scope, need further clarification, incomplete etc. This step determines the next course of action on testing.

Create Test Plan

In this step, the testers come up with the test plan comprising of the items like scope of testing, test approaches and methodologies, estimation, timelines, resources, testing tools to be used, team size, roles and responsibilities of team members, test environment, potential risks, items to be tested, automation, standards etc.

Create Test Cases

In this step, the requirements are converted into test scenarios (consisting of positive, negative and edge). The test scenarios are further converted into individual test cases such that there is at least one test case written for a single requirement, and a traceability matrix is created between the requirements and the test cases. The test scenarios and cases must be reviewed and sent for proper approvals.

Test Implementation

In this step, the test team makes the preparation such that once the development team is ready with the software, they can immediately kick off testing. In order to achieve that, the test team should be equipped with the environment, data, and all other resources to begin.

Execute Test Cases

In this step, the test team executes all the test cases, detects all the potential bugs, gets them fixed.

Acceptance Test

In this step, the testing team validates if the software is per the business, and end users requirements. This is the last phase of testing prior shipping the product to the customers.

Reporting

In this step, the entire reporting of the testing process is documented and shared to every project stakeholders. It contains information about the total count of test cases, number of test cases passed, failed, not executed, number of defects, severity and priority of each defect, execution time, number of test cycles, number of modules tested, and other metrics.

Product Installation

In this step, the product is installed in the production environment, and basic functionalities are verified. Besides, a formal guide on the installation process of the product, the hardware, software, platform, and other resources required is created.

Product Maintenance

In this step, the product moves to the maintenance phase, during which with any change of requirements, the test plan is updated accordingly. Based on that, all the testing deliverables are also modified.

Access Test Effectiveness

In this step, the entire testing processes taken up in the project is evaluated and test effectiveness is measured after taking feedback from all the project stakeholders comprising the developers, business analysts, product owners, managers, compliance team (if any), and the customers as well.

This concludes our comprehensive take on the tutorial on Software Testing - Steps. We’ve started with describing what are software testing steps. This equips you with in-depth knowledge of Software Testing - Step. It is wise to keep practicing what you’ve learned and exploring others relevant to Software Testing to deepen your understanding and expand your horizons.