Whether you build a website yourself or hire a custom software development company, you should release software that has undergone rigorous testing. However, the process isn’t a linear one.
Instead, it should be multi-dimensional and continuous. As digital systems become sophisticated, programs must undergo the software testing life cycle (STLC) before businesses introduce them to the market.
Get to know the meaning of STLC and each of its phases below.
Table of Contents
STLC Meaning: What Is Software Testing Life Cycle?
The software testing life cycle (STLC) is a testing strategy that helps meet software quality standards through systematic testing. It identifies test activities to be carried out and when to accomplish them.
It is designed to understand a system’s state and recommend improvements. The stages involve strategizing, planning, executing, and completing test cycles.
The software testing life cycle ensures that software quality goals are met through verification and validation. It is not an isolated activity but a series of methodologically carried out steps aimed at establishing diverse goals.
What Are the 7 SDLC Phases?
Each stage of the software testing life cycle has entry and exit criteria, activities, and other deliverables. Entry criteria involve prerequisites that must be met before testing begins, while exit criteria define what must be completed before the testing phase can conclude.
Some phases can be performed simultaneously, while others require previous stages to be completed before moving forward. Additionally, some companies merge the first two stages (planning and analysis) into one (requirements analysis), resulting in just 6 steps.
Nonetheless, we’ll delve into the seven phases of the software testing life cycle. These are:
- Planning: Understanding the application
- Analyzing and Defining Requirements: Defining test objectives
- Test Planning: Crafting a strategic approach and selecting testing tools
- Test Case Development: Creating detailed test cases and preparing test data
- Environment Setup: Ensuring the right testing environment
- Test Execution: Running the tests and documenting the findings
- Test Cycle Closure and Maintenance: Evaluating the results and learning for future test cycles
1. Planning
The first step of the software testing life cycle is understanding what you want to achieve with it. This entails gathering basic data about the most general picture of the project. In this phase, you determine what the software will do, the problems it will solve, the primary beneficiaries, and other driving questions.
The phase includes activities, such as:
- Setting up the goals and estimating the costs to achieve them
- Getting basic feedback from developers and the target group
- Identifying the tests to be performed
- Creating the Project Plan and basics of the Software Requirement Specification (SRS) — documents that detail the project timeline, potential risks, and goals.
Entry and Exit Criteria:
- Entry – Understanding the general project goals
- Exit – Completion of Project Plan and SRS
2. Analyzing and Defining Requirements
The second step focuses on specifying the exact requirements for the project. This allows the quality assurance team to understand the requirements, which include:
- Basics such as the product to be tested
- Software requirements
- High-end business needs
- Architectural requirements showcasing the features to be designed and supported
- Detailed system requirements that guide developers
These may include functional and non-functional aspects, which help with testing and validation.
Also known as the requirement analysis phase, it requires the team to study and identify testable requirements. This stage includes brainstorming sessions, highlighting problem areas, and prioritizing certain assessments.
In case of doubts, the QA team clarifies with engineers, stakeholders, or the business side. This helps the team understand if anything is missing or needs detailed understanding.
The activities in this phase include:
- Gathering details about the testing focus
- Preparing the Requirement Traceability Matrix (RTM)
- Determining the test environment details where testing will be carried out
- Conducting an automation feasibility analysis
- Enhancing product quality
- Reducing test cycle time
Entry and Exit Criteria:
- Entry – Functional and non-functional requirement specifications
- Exit – RTM and an automation feasibility report (if applicable)
3. Test Planning
Test planning is the most efficient phase of the software testing life cycle that defines all testing plans. The team manager calculates the estimated cost and time for the project.
The senior QA manager determines the test plan strategy, efforts, and cost estimations. With the plan created, this phase gathers participants’ data and their testing roles, necessary testing tools, and the test environment.
Insights from the previous step help create the QA strategy documentation, which analyzes the resources and efforts required for the release. This documentation also helps inform the rest of the teams and departments about the project particulars.
The activities in this phase include resource planning, determining roles and responsibilities, tool selection (automation), training requirements, test environment setup, limitations, scheduling, etc. Outsourcing software development can provide comprehensive support in test planning and execution.
Other details include the scope, objectives, functional types, non-functional tests, and specifics of the testing environment. It sets the timelines for the roles and determines the deliverables to be provided towards the end of the phase.
Test planning activities include:
- Preparing the test plan document for various types of testing
- Testing tool selection
- Testing effort estimation
- Resource planning
- Determining roles and responsibilities
- Preparing training requirements
Entry and Exit Criteria:
- Entry – QA Strategy Documentation
- Exit – Test plan/strategy document and an effort estimation document.
4. Test Case Development Phase
After the test plan, testers begin writing and creating detailed test cases.
The structured tests are defined in detail, along with the test data. Test cases should be simple, transparent, adaptable, and cover complete requirements in specific documents.
Once the test cases are ready, the team lead can review them and update automated test scripts. Each case defines test inputs, procedures, execution conditions, and anticipated results.
This phase includes manual and automated testing to cover the functionality and features. However, research shows that manual testing is the most time-consuming activity, so firms nowadays rely on automation for greater accuracy.
Jorge A. Mora, Partnerships Development Manager at CodeBranch, confirms the importance of both approaches: "Our software testing is tailored to each customer’s specific needs; we can do automated or manual testing depending on the nature of the product."
Karan Rawal, Senior Digital Marketing Specialist at Ace Infoway, agrees and adds: "We automate as many tests as possible to reduce the time it takes to test the software. For significant changes, we schedule manual tests to ensure that the most important areas of the software are tested thoroughly."
Test data is identified, created, reviewed, and reworked as necessary. The QA team then starts developing the test cases for individual units.
The stage involves the creation, verification, and test case rework after the test plan is finalized. Teams also prepare required data for testing, which is then checked by the quality assurance team.
The test case development includes:
- Creating test cases and automation scripts if needed
- Reviewing test cases and scripts
- Creating test data if the test environment is available
Entry and Exit Criteria:
- Entry – Detailed test cases
- Exit – Test data and test scripts/cases
5. Test Environment Setup
The test environment setup phase is where the actual testing occurs. The test plan creates a precise testing environment by configuring operating systems and virtual machines. This phase deploys tools such as Selenium, Katalon Studio, and other databases.
Testers adjust the environment parameters according to the test case requirements. This concludes the software and hardware conditions for product testing. As an independent activity, each deliverable can be performed in parallel with the test case development phase.
This phase doesn’t involve the testing team. Instead, the developer creates the environment for tests such as smoke testing.
The activities include:
- Assessing the required architecture, environment setup, and software requirements
- Setting up test data
- Performing a smoke test on the final product
Entry and Exit Criteria:
- Entry – Configuration of operating systems and virtual machines
- Exit – Ready environment with a test data setup and smoke test results
6. Test Execution Phase
In this software testing life cycle phase, testers execute tests in the environment where the software is configured.
Tests are performed based on test documentation and a fitting configured test environment. The results are then recorded in the Test Management System.
Tests that fail to meet expected results are recorded as errors and passed to the development team for script revision and re-checking.
To identify and report bugs, the testers execute all test cases within the allotted time. As developers fix the problem, testers continue retesting the product to ensure problems are not solidified. The testing team executes test cases based on previous products, test script execution, test script maintenance, and bug reporting.
In the event of bugs, reports are sent to the developing team for correction and retesting.
Activities in this phase include:
- Executing tests as planned
- Documenting test results and noting the failed cases
- Mapping defects to test cases in RTM
- Retesting rectified areas
- Tracking defects to closure
Entry and Exit Criteria:
- Entry – Tests based on test documentation and a suitable configured test environment
- Exit – Completed RTM with the execution status, updated test case results, and defect reports
7. Test Cycle Closure and Maintenance
The test cycle closure phase of the STLC marks the completion of the test execution phase. This involves test completion reporting, collecting test completion matrices, obtaining test results, and continuous software checkups and improvements.
The testing team provides the test closure report, which summarizes the project and its findings. This report includes the time spent, the percentage of defects found in positive test results, and the number of errors found and fixed.
Comparisons may cover met objectives, time taken, total costs, test coverage, or defects found. On the other hand, the testing department analyzes work, summarizes the results, assesses productivity levels, makes suggestions, and improves testing quality.
The testing team submits relevant details to the team, such as test strategy, test case document, automated test scripts, and test results.
Members may often meet to discuss and analyze testing artifacts, identify strategies for future implementations, and draw lessons from current testing cycles. This is the last stage, wherein the testing process is examined, and bottlenecks are removed for future test cycles.
Activities include:
- Evaluating cycle completion criteria (e.g., time, test coverage, software, cost, or quality)
- Preparing test metrics
- Preparing test closure reports
- Documenting project learnings
- Maintaining the software’s optimal functioning
Entry and Exit Criteria:
- Entry – Test closure report
- Exit – Test metrics and test closure reports
Software Testing Life Cycle - Implementation
Some firms incorporate the software testing life cycle phases before and during development to maximize resources through tactics, such as:
- Test-driven development
- Test automation
- Crowd testing
- Shift left testing
- Shift right testing
An active software testing life cycle process yields valid and accurate results, helping organizations implement changes swiftly, thereby drawing customers and revenue. Software testing also helps discover key insights during the pre-release phase to reach long and short-term objectives.
Since each phase has unique goals and deliverables, this offers validation throughout the ideation, Proof-of-Concept, design, and execution stages. Testing is conducted in stages to ensure systematic training and meeting quality standards.
Different teams may be involved in various stages of software development methodologies to achieve goals. However, this should be done in a well-documented and strategic way.
Bhaval Patel, Director of Operations at Space-O, explains its methodology: "At Space-O Technologies, we have a comprehensive software testing cycle incorporating JIRA, Selenium, and AWS. Our dedicated QA team conducts functional, security (with ZAP), usability (using Hotjar), performance, and cross-browser tests. Emphasizing thorough testing with tools like JMeter, Calabash, and Ranorex...”
The software testing life cycle phases may be repeated multiple times until the software is deemed fit to be released.
The testing process helps with:
- Refining the agile testing process
- Increasing effectiveness and consistency
- Clearly defining goals and expectations
- Defining time constraints
- Ensuring thorough testing of features and approving additional features
- Verifying project requirements are met
- Analyzing task automation
- Assessing environmental information
Software Testing Life Cycle – Key Takeaways
When testing software, nothing can be left to chance. While planning is crucial, it doesn’t have to be tedious and time-consuming. The pressure to meet tight deadlines and create excellent software requires systematic testing.
A software testing life cycle helps efficiently organize testing workflow, improve product quality, make quick bug fixes, and streamline an otherwise chaotic process.
Software Testing Life Cycle FAQ
1. Is STLC a part of SDLC?
Yes, the Software Testing Life Cycle (STLC) is a part of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC).
STLC is dedicated to the testing stage, which guarantees the quality of the final product, while SDLC plays a crucial role in the overall development of software. Developers cannot release the final product without going through the STLC process, which is an essential stage of the SDLC.
Even after launching the software, developers use STLC as a part of SDLC in the maintenance stage, where they fix bugs or add new features to the product.
2. What is the difference between STLC and SDLC?
STLC stands for Software Testing Life Cycle, a stage in software development focused on identifying bugs and errors to ensure the final product meets quality standards and customers' requirements.
SDLC stands for Software Development Life Cycle, a comprehensive process of creating software from scratch. SDLC includes phases such as information collection, analysis, design, implementation, testing, deployment, and maintenance, which all ensure that the final product meets clients' requirements.
In conclusion, SDLC is a more comprehensive process that includes all stages of software development, including testing. In contrast, STLC focuses exclusively on testing the software application.
3. Is Agile an STLC?
Agile includes STLC, but it is a software development method or SDLC. Instead of a bottom-up development approach, Agile emphasizes collaborative decision-making and development over several short cycles or sprints. Developing teams operate in cycles, each lasting for 2 to 4 weeks.
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