testingsense.com

sonam · Joined: 21 Apr 2007 Posts: 16

What steps are needed to develop and run software tests?

The following are some of the steps to consider:

* Obtain requirements, functional design, and internal design specifications and other necessary documents
* Obtain budget and schedule requirements
* Determine project-related personnel and their responsibilities, reporting requirements, required standards and processes (such as release processes, change processes, etc.)
* Determine project context, relative to the existing quality culture of the organization and business, and how it might impact testing scope, aproaches, and methods.
* Identify application's higher-risk aspects, set priorities, and determine scope and limitations of tests
* Determine test approaches and methods - unit, integration, functional, system, load, usability tests, etc.
* Determine test environment requirements (hardware, software, communications, etc.)
* Determine testware requirements (record/playback tools, coverage analyzers, test tracking, problem/bug tracking, etc.)
* Determine test input data requirements
* Identify tasks, those responsible for tasks, and labor requirements
* Set schedule estimates, timelines, milestones
* Determine input equivalence classes, boundary value analyses, error classes
* Prepare test plan document and have needed reviews/approvals
* Write test cases
* Have needed reviews/inspections/approvals of test cases
* Prepare test environment and testware, obtain needed user manuals/reference documents/configuration guides/installation guides, set up test tracking processes, set up logging and archiving processes, set up or obtain test input data
* Obtain and install software releases
* Perform tests
* Evaluate and report results
* Track problems/bugs and fixes
* Retest as needed
* Maintain and update test plans, test cases, test environment, and testware through life cycle