5 Steps in the Software Testing Process

Steven Spielberg

Nowadays, in such a highly competitive industry, demand for new applications and functionality is becoming more important and with the increase in demand, quality assurance companies are improving their skills to meet deadlines.

Testing is a part of the software development life cycle. A complete testing process involves the following basic steps:

1. Planning and Control

2. Analysis and Design

3. Implementation and Execution

4. Estimating Exit criteria and Reporting

5. Test Closure Activities

1. Planning and Control

Planning and control involves the following main activities.

I. To evaluate the scope, risk and identifying the goals

II. To plan the basic approach.

III. To implement the test strategy and policy. Basically it is an important part of the software development cycle. It is designed to inform tester, developers and project manager about some key issues about the testing process. This consists of the testing objectives, its approach, total time and resources required for the completion of project.

Test control involves following important activities

I. To analyze the results of testing

II. To estimate the test coverage, documentation and exit criteria

III. To give complete project information

IV. To make decisions

2. Analysis and Design

Test Analysis and Design

Activities involved in this phase are:

To examine the test basis, basically it is the information that is needed to start test cases and analysis. This documentation helps to create test cases, design specifications, such as requirements, risk analysis, interfaces and architecture.

I. To determine test cases

II. To design the work flow

III. To examine testability of the system and requirements

3. Implementation and Execution

In this phase, we convert the test requirements into test cases and writing scripts for automation. In test cases we specify conditions under which we check whether a software is returning correct output or not.

4. Estimating Exit criteria and Reporting

Depending on risk analysis of the project we fix the criteria for each test level. The fixed criteria vary from software to software and is called exit criteria.

Exit criteria take place when

1) Maximum test cases are executed with certain pass percentage.

2) Number of bugs falls down at a certain level

3) When achieved the deadlines.

5. Test Closure Activities

Test Closure Activities are performed when the project is delivered. It contains the following list of activities.

I. To determine that planned outcomes are actually deliver to make sure that reports and bugs has been resolved.

II. To complete scripts and test environments for future use.

III. To analyze how the complete process went through and to figure out what extra points can be added to the process for future projects.

Next Post

A Series on Principles for Successful Parent Advocacy - Principle Three - Be a Contributor

This is the third and final principle in this series on parent advocacy. Some of this comes from my past 25 years in education and some from interviews with parents that I have met through work, conferences, parent meetings, day care, and my sons school. I have been honored with […]
A Series on Principles for Successful Parent Advocacy – Principle Three – Be a Contributor

You May Like

Subscribe US Now