Test Process and Reporting

Whenever we get any new project there is initial project familiarity meeting. In this meeting we basically discuss on who is client? What is project duration and when is delivery? Who is involved in project i.e. manager, Tech leads, QA leads, developers, testers etc.

From the SRS (software requirement specification) project plan is developed. The responsibility of testers is to create software test plan from this SRS and project plan. Developers start coding from the design. The project work is divided into different modules and these project modules are distributed among the developers. In meantime testers responsibility is to create test scenario and write test cases according to assigned modules. We try to cover almost all the functional test cases from SRS.  The data can be maintained manually in some excel test case templates or bug tracking tools.

When developers finish individual modules, those modules are assigned to testers.  Smoke testing is performed on these modules and if they fail this test, modules are reassigned to respective developers for fix. For passed modules manual testing is carried out from the written test cases. If any bug is found that get assigned to module developer and  get logged in bug tracking tool. On bug fix tester do bug verification and regression testing of all related modules. If bug passes the verification it is marked as verified and marked as closed. Otherwise above mentioned bug cycle gets repeated.(I will cover bug life cycle in other post)

Different tests are performed on individual modules and integration testing on module integration. These tests includes Compatibility testing i.e testing application on different hardware, OS versions,  software platform, different browsers etc. Load and stress testing is also carried out according to SRS. Finally system testing is performed by creating virtual client environment. On passing all the test cases test report is prepared and decision is taken to release the product.

So this was a brief outline of process of Project Life Cycle. Here is detail of each step what testing exactly carried out in each software quality and testing life cycle

Review of the software requirement specifications

Objectives is set for the Major releases

Target Date planned for the Releases

Detailed Project Plan is build. This includes the decision on Design Specifications

Develop Test Plan based on Design Specifications

1. Test Plan: This includes Objectives, Methodology adopted while testing, Features to be tested and not to be tested, risk criteria, testing schedule, multi- platform support and the resource allocation for testing.

2. Test Specifications:  This document includes technical details ( Software requirements )Required prior to the testing.

3.  Writing of Test Cases:

       • Smoke (BVT) test cases
       • Sanity Test cases
       • Regression Test Cases
       • Negative Test Cases
       • Extended Test Cases

Development: Modules developed one by one

1. Installers Binding: Installers are build around the individual product.
2. Build Procedure:  A build includes Installers of the available products – multiple platforms.

Testing:

1. Smoke Test (BVT):  Basic application test to take decision on further testing
2. Testing of new features
3. Cross-Platform Testing
4. Stress Testing and Memory Leakage Testing.

Bug Reporting

Testing Task (Retesting, Builds and Regression Testing)
Test Management Task (Bug Report Creation, Decision to Release the Product/Project, Post-Release Scenario for Further Objectives)
Development Task (Code Freezing, No more or New features cannot be added at this point)