Software Testing Life Cycle and Bug Life Cycle

Lecture No  : 3

Hello All,

In last blog/lecture(Lecture No:2) we took the important SDLC process, In this Blog we are going to learn each and every phase of STLC (i.e Software Testing Life Cycle) and Bug Life Cycle.

This is the most important question were asking in the Testing Interview.

So let’s start the discussion:

Q) What is STLC? Explain the STCL Cycle?

STLC is the sub part of SDLC(Software Testing Life Cycle). Same like SDLC, STLC also has the various phases. Each phase has various activities.

All different phases are listed in following diagram, please have a look.

1.     Requirement Analysis:

2.     Test Planning

3.     Test Case Writing

4.     Test Execution

5.     Test Closure

Requirement Analysis:

We can say Requirement Analysis is the part of static testing, because Testers are working on the documents. In this phase testers are identifying the testable requirements.

Collect the information about Application.

Understand the Functional and Non-Functional requirements.

Taking the meetings with Client, Business Analyst, Manager, System Architect to understand the requirements in details.

Identify the Levels of Testing and Creating Test Strategy.

Out Put of this phase is:

List Of testable requirement

RTM (Requirement Traceability Matrix)

Test Strategy

Test Planning:

This is the next phase of Testing Life Cycle, in this phase QA team refer the documents which are created in last phase i.e. Requirement Analysis.

QA manager estimate the test efforts

Identify the team size/ Resource Management

Prepare the Testing schedule: Who to test? what to test? and when to test?

Out Put of this phase is:

Test Plan

Test Estimation

Test Case Writing:

This Phase is totally depends on the last two phases, Using RTM creating the Functional and Non functional test cases. Create the test data on the basis of Test Case behavior.

 Out Put of this phase is:

Test Scenario

Test Cases

Test Data

Test Case Execution:

Before going for the test execution, QA team should check that required build is deployed in Test Environment.

Executing the application and performing steps by referring to a Test Case.

Maintain the result of the Test case, compare the Actual result with expected result as written in the test case. Bugs will be reported back to the development team for correction and retesting will be performed. and follow BUG LIFE CYCLE.

Out Put of this phase is:

Defect Report

Daily Test Status Report

Test Closure:

Testing team will meet , discuss and analyze testing artifacts to identify strategies that have to be implemented in future.

Prepare Test closure report.

All Test Deliverables from all phases of STLC to be checked in Configuration Management Tool

Out Put of this phase is:

Test Closure report 

Test metrics

Q) What is BUG LIFE CYCLE?

Bug life cycle is the part of STLC process. This is the process which is start from finding the bug till fixing that bug. This Cycle is divided into multiple phases, which is shown in following fig.

a) New:

When a new Bug or Defect found and Submitted in Bug Tracking tool for the first time this time the status of the Bug is NEW.

b) Assign:

After BUG is submitted in the Bug Tracking tool, Test Lead checks that bug if the Bug is valid then assigns to the responsible developer.

c) Open:

After assigning developer gets notification about Bug, Developer change the state of that bug as Open.

After that Developer starts analyzing and works on to fix that defect.

d) Fixed:

When the developer does the necessary changes in the code to fix that bug and verifies the changes, after getting the confidence developer change the status as Fixed.

e) Verify:

In this phase tester comes to the picture, tester will do the re-testing and regression testing to check whether the defect is fixed by the developer or not if the bug is fixed then change the status to "Verify."

f) Re-Open:

If the bug is not fixed even after the developer has fixed the bug, the tester changes the status to "reopen". Once again the bug goes through the life cycle.

g) Close:

If the bug is no longer exists then tester assigns the status as "Close." 

h) Deferred:

If the present bug is not high priority and high severity, and if it is expected to get fixed in the next release, then status "Deferred" is assigned to such bugs, this state will assigned by Test team lead or Project Manager.

i) Reject:

This state is assigned by Developer, If the developer feels that the bug is not genuine this time he will change the state as “Rejected.”

j) Not Bug:

If bug does not affect the functionality of the application then the status assigned to a bug is "Not bug".

k) Duplicate:

This is happens many times in testing life, same bug reported by multiple team members, this time state change to the “Duplicate”.

If the bug state is set as (i) Reject, (j) Not a Bug, and (k) Duplicate, reported bug will be closed. 

I hope this information is useful for you, If you have any doubts or have some suggestions for my blog post please write a comment.

Thanks in advance.