• Software requirements phase.
• Software Design
• Implementation
• Testing
• Maintenance

In the whole development process, testing consumes highest amount of time. But most of the developers oversee that and testing phase is generally neglected. As a consequence, erroneous software is released. The testing team should be involved right from the requirements stage itself.

The various phases involved in testing, with regard to the software development life cycle are:

1. Requirements stage
2. Test Plan
3. Test Design.
4. Design Reviews
5. Code Reviews
6. Test Cases preparation.
7. Test Execution
8. Test Reports.
9. Bugs Reporting
10. Reworking on patches.
11. Release to production.

Requirements Stage

Normally in many companies, developers itself take part in the requirements stage. Especially for product-based companies, a tester should also be involved in this stage. Since a tester thinks from the user side whereas a developer can’t. A separate panel should be formed for each module comprising a developer, a tester and a user. Panel meetings should be scheduled in order to gather everyone’s view. All the requirements should be documented properly for further use and this document is called “Software Requirements Specifications”.

Test Plan

Without a good plan, no work is a success. A successful work always contains a good plan. The testing process of software should also require good plan. Test plan document is the most important document that brings in a process – oriented approach. A test plan document should be prepared after the requirements of the project are confirmed. The test plan document must consist of the following information:

• Total number of features to be tested.
• Testing approaches to be followed.
• The testing methodologies
• Number of man-hours required.
• Resources required for the whole testing process.
• The testing tools that are to be used.
• The test cases, etc

Test Design

Test Design is done based on the requirements of the project. Test has to be designed based on whether manual or automated testing is done. For automation testing, the different paths for testing are to be identified first. An end to end checklist has to be prepared covering all the features of the project.

The test design is represented pictographically. The test design involves various stages. These stages can be summarized as follows:

• The different modules of the software are identified first.
• Next, the paths connecting all the modules are identified.

Then the design is drawn. The test design is the most critical one, which decides the test case preparation. So the test design assesses the quality of testing process.

Test Cases Preparation

Test cases should be prepared based on the following scenarios:

• Positive scenarios
• Negative scenarios
• Boundary conditions and
• Real World scenarios