In an Ideal world you will not enter the next stage until the exit criteria for the previous stage is met. But practically this is not always possible. So for this tutorial , we will focus of activities and deliverables for the different stages in STLC. Lets look into them in detail.
Requirement Analysis
During this phase, test team studies the requirements from a testing point of view to identify the testable requirements. The QA team may interact with various stakeholders (Client, Business Analyst, Technical Leads, System Architects etc) to understand the requirements in detail. Requirements could be either Functional (defining what the software must do) or Non Functional (defining system performance /security availability) .Automation feasibility for the given testing project is also done in this stage.
Activities
• Identify types of tests to be performed.
• Gather details about testing priorities and focus.
• Prepare Requirement Traceability Matrix (RTM).
• Identify test environment details where testing is supposed to be carried out.
• Automation feasibility analysis (if required).
Deliverables
• RTM
• Automation feasibility report. (if applicable) Test Planning
This phase is also called Test Strategy phase. Typically , in this stage, a Senior QA manager will determine effort and cost estimates for the project and would prepare and finalize the Test Plan.
Activities
• Preparation of test plan/strategy document for various types of testing
• Test tool selection
• Test effort estimation
• Resource planning and determining roles and responsibilities.
• Training requirement
Deliverables
• Test plan /strategy document.
• Effort estimation document. Test Case Development
This phase involves creation, verification and rework of test cases & test scripts.