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What is Software Test Life Cycle(STLC)?


  • Requirement Analysis
  • Test Planning
  • Test Case Development
  • Environment Setup
  • Test Execution
  • Test Cycle Closure
Requirement Analysis
Requirement Analysis is the very first step in Software Testing Life Cycle (STLC). In this step Quality Assurance (QA) team understands the requirement in terms of what we will testing & figure out the testable requirements. If any conflict, missing or not understood any requirement, then QA team follow up with the various stakeholders like Business Analyst, System Architecture, Client, Technical Manager/Lead etc to better understand the detail knowledge of requirement.
From very first step QA involved in the where STLC which helps to prevent the introducing defects into Software under test. The requirements can be either Functional or Non-Functional like Performance, Security testing. Also requirement and Automation feasibility of the project can be done in this stage (if applicable)

Activities
  • Identify types of tests to be performed. 
  • Gather details about testing priorities and focus.
  • Prepare Requirement Traceability Matrix (RTM).
  • Identify test environment details where testing is supposed to be carried out. 
  • Automation feasibility analysis (if required).
Deliverables
  • RTM
  • Automation feasibility report. (if applicable)

Test Planning:
Test Planning is most important phase of Software testing life cycle where all testing strategy is defined. This phase also called as Test Strategy phase. In this phase typically Test Manager (or Test Lead based on company to company) involved to determine the effort and cost estimates for entire project. This phase will be kicked off once the requirement gathering phase is completed & based on the requirement analysis, start preparing the Test Plan. The Result of Test Planning phase will 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.
Activities
  • Preparation of test plan/strategy document for various types of testing
  • Test tool selection 
  • Test effort estimation 
  • Resource planning and determining roles and responsibilities.
  • Training requirement
Deliverables 

Test Case Development:

·         The test case development activity is started once the test planning activity is finished. This is the phase of STLC where testing team write down the detailed test cases. Along with test cases testing team also prepare the test data if any required for testing. Once the test cases are ready then these test cases are reviewed by peer members or QA lead.
·         Also the Requirement Traceability Matrix (RTM) is prepared. The Requirement Traceability Matrix is an industry-accepted format for tracking requirements where each test case is mapped with the requirement. Using this RTM we can track backward & forward traceability.
Activities
  • Create test cases, automation scripts (if applicable)
  • Review and baseline test cases and scripts 
  • Create test data (If Test Environment is available)
Deliverables 
  • Test cases/scripts 
  • Test data

Test Environment Setup:

Setting up the test environment is vital part of the STLC. Basically test environment decides on which conditions software is tested. This is independent activity and can be started parallel with Test Case Development. In process of setting up testing environment test team is not involved in it. Based on company to company may be developer or customer creates the testing environment. Mean while testing team should prepare the smoke test cases to check the readiness of the test environment setup.
Activities 
  • Understand the required architecture, environment set-up and prepare hardware and software requirement list for the Test Environment. 
  • Setup test Environment and test data 
  • Perform smoke test on the build
Deliverables 
  • Environment ready with test data set up 
  • Smoke Test Results.

Test Execution
Once the preparation of Test Case Development and Test Environment setup is completed then test execution phase can be kicked off. In this phase testing team start executing test cases based on prepared test planning & prepared test cases in the prior step.
Once the test case is passed then same can be marked as Passed. If any test case is failed then corresponding defect can be reported to developer team via bug tracking system & bug can be linked for corresponding test case for further analysis. Ideally every failed test case should be associated with at least single bug. Using this linking we can get the failed test case with bug associated with it. Once the bug fixed by development team then same test case can be executed based on your test planning.
If any of the test cases are blocked due to any defect then such test cases can be marked as Blocked, so we can get the report based on how many test cases passed, failed, blocked or not run etc. Once the defects are fixed, same Failed or Blocked test cases can be executed again to retest the functionality.

Activities 
  • Execute tests as per plan
  • Document test results, and log defects for failed cases 
  • Map defects to test cases in RTM 
  • Retest the Defect fixes 
  • Track the defects to closure
Deliverables 
  • Completed RTM with execution status 
  • Test cases updated with results 
  • Defect reports
Test Cycle Closure:
Call out the testing team member meeting & evaluate cycle completion criteria based on Test coverage, Quality, Cost, Time, Critical Business Objectives, and Software. Discuss what all went good, which area needs to be improve & taking the lessons from current STLC as input to upcoming test cycles, which will help to improve bottleneck in the STLC process. Test case & bug report will analyze to find out the defect distribution by type and severity. Once complete the test cycle then test closure report & Test metrics will be prepared. Test result analysis to find out the defect distribution by type and severity.
Activities
  • Evaluate cycle completion criteria based on Time,Test coverage,Cost,Software,Critical Business Objectives , Quality
  • Prepare test metrics based on the above parameters. 
  • Document the learning out of the project 
  • Prepare Test closure report 
  • Qualitative and quantitative reporting of quality of the work product to the customer. 
  • Test result analysis to find out the defect distribution by type and severity.
Deliverables 
  • Test Closure report 
  • Test metrics
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