Software Testing Life Cycle 2/2

Please click here to read the beginning of the software testing life cycle 1/2

4.0 Test Scripts

You will find that a great deal of the test team's efforts will be devoted to writing test scripts. These will be based upon the business requirements documentation, project management requirements as well as use cases and will enable the test team to test specific scenarios which end users are likely to follow.

5.0 Test Environment Set Up

Depending on the complexity of the project you are delivering, the set up of the environments required for testing can be a tortuous process which should not be forgotten.

I have managed a particularly complex project where over 70% of the bugs raised were caused by environmental setup problems rather than problems with the software itself. It was an extremely frustrating experience I can tell you, especially considering that a little care and attention by the test team could have ensured these bugs were never raised in the first place!

6.0 Test Execution

During this phase the test scripts already written are executed ie run. Now this phase usually takes place after all the process of software development is complete. However if you are using either Agile methodology or SCRUM methodology then you will find that agile testing often runs in parallel with the programming code drops.

7.0 Test Closure Report

This is the final report which details the testing done, the amount of defects found, the number fixed and the number which weren't. It should also detail the severity of he bugs found as well as the amount of code releases installed.

Again this report should be a deliverable of the project quality management conducted by ITQA. However it is rare that it is actually used in a go, no go decision to launch the software. The reason being that this report takes time to prepare and often there are only a few days on a project between testing finishing, and the project having to launch.

Software Testing Life Cycle - Tip

The final phase of the software testing life cycle is often where the project budget and timeframes go out of control. This is usually because of the large numbers of bugs which are found in the code, many of which will need to be fixed and then regression tested. This in turn can cause further problems, and before you know it you are throwing every resource at the problem and blowing the budget in a desperate attempt to be ready for the launch date.

So remember this the next time you are given a project with a publicised launch date, and plan accordingly both in terms of both project resource allocation and also when estimating project costs.