Role of Test Management in Simplifying Your STLC Processes

STLC, as we all know, stands for Software Testing Life Cycle and it is an indispensable aspect of any project. This includes all activities related to testing, from the requirements to the release, which a lot of testers find difficult to do justice. Moreover, if someone asked a non-tester for their views on STLC, they would probably think it’s just about testing and finding bugs, and not much else. That’s certainly not the case, though, as far as the testing cycle is concerned. The testing cycle plays an integral part of ensuring and assuring the delivery of a high quality product to the marketplace. More often than not, testers across many organizations don’t feel as if they do complete justice in these activities. That’s where leveraging a comprehensive test management solution will help. 

In this blog, we’re going to explain the software testing processes step-by-step, the problems testers face in each, and how a test management tool like QA touch provides an overall solution. So, if you are a tester who isn’t using a comprehensive test management tool for managing your STLC processes, read on!

Phase #1: Project Requirements Gathering

The first phase begins before even starting to work on the project. It’s where the project stakeholders, including the clients, discuss all the details of the project and how it will be delivered to the marketplace after completion. It happens either once at the start of the project, or on a uniform regular basis, depending on the project methodology. In any case, as a tester, you need to be part of the discussion as you have to do the testing to confirm the requirements discussed here. The Business Requirements Document (BRD) will be scheduled post this meeting.

Major Problems Faced by Testers

Testers devoid of a test management tool face the following problems with respect to the managing requirements: 

1. Difficulty in jotting down all requirements. A lot of requirements spoken about may seem trivial. Even if they do, they find it difficult to sort out specifically what to test for and what not to test for.
2. Testers find it cumbersome to keep track of the test status of the relevant requirements.

Solution via Test Management

A test management tool like QA touch provides a comprehensive solution to manage requirements throughout the testing phase. You can easily track and report on the project requirements in QA touch by: 

1. Classifying and adding requirements based on type.
2. Linking the requirements with their corresponding test cases and track mapping using the Requirements Traceability matrix.
3. Seamlessly reporting the requirements summary at any point in time to the project stakeholders.

The below image shows a Requirements Traceability Matrix in QA touch

Phase #2: Planning Test Activities

This phase happens after the requirements are elicited and everyone in the project knows what is expected out of the product. Testers now involve drafting the plan for how they are going to verify the expected requirements, and detail how each requirement will be checked for conformance by means of test cases and steps. 

Major Problems Faced by Testers

Testers devoid of a test management tool face the following problems in regards to test planning: 

1. Unable to keep track of the details of test cases, such as categories. 
2. Trouble keeping watch on the requirements a test case intends to confirm.
3. Having difficulty (or sometimes unable to) reporting the test scenarios being worked on. 

Solution via Test Management 

A salient test management tool like QA touch helps in seamless handling of test cases with the following:

1. The ability to create test cases with details on test category, title, steps to execute the test case, mode, type, priority, preconditions, and so on.
2. Enables linking a test case with the requirement it intends to confirm.
3. Comprehensive reporting of the test cases with every inch of its detail to the product manager, to provide an understanding of how comprehensive the test planning has been.

The below image shows the test cases listing page in QA touch

This image is a Test Case Report generated in QA touch

Phase #3: Test Execution

This is where the plan created for testing in the previous step will actually be run. Testers will run a test case on the product being tested, with payload data in any given environment (testing, staging, or production). There are different types of testing involved, such as unit testing, performance testing, regression testing and so on, and the term test execution phase in general engulfs all of these.

In the test execution phase, testers will be able to find out whether the product meets the requirements elicited during Phase #1.

Major Problems Faced by Testers

Testers devoid of a test management tool face the following problems with respect to test execution: 

1. The headache of not understanding the status of test runs, in terms of whether the test scenarios passed or not, the time spent for testing each case, and so on. 
2. Trouble knowing the person the test run has been assigned to, which developer a failed case has been assigned to, and whether the developer has resolved the same or not.
3. Being able to report the completion metrics of tests done within a release to senior managers.

Solution via Test Management    

A fitting test management tool like QA touch helps in handling seamless test runs by means of:

1. Furnishing broad details of test run in terms of who it’s assigned to, the status of test scenarios (passed, failed, blocked, untested) and the overall percentage of completion from the run.
2. The ability to check on how many requirements have been successfully implemented.
3. You can also filter and view how many tests have passed, how many tests have been assigned to a particular person, and so on.

The below image shows a Test Run Overview page in QA touch

Phase #4: Defect Management 

Not all tests will result in a success or result in bugs that are present in the product developed (or being developed). Testers raise bugs for failed test cases and assign them to the concerned developer. The developers work on fixing the respective bugs assigned to them and resend the work for testing again. Then, the tester checks if the defect has been fixed along with ensuring the new change has not hampered the existing requirements which were working fine. So, testing defects in itself is a cycle and complex to manage.

Major Problems Faced by Testers

Testers devoid of a test management tool face the following problems with respect to defect management:

1. Being unable to identify which issue was created for failure of what test. 
2. Difficulty tracking the details of an issue such as the priority, severity, the developer an issue has been assigned to, and whether it has been closed or not. 

Solution via Test Management

A quality test management tool like QA touch helps in efficient handling of defects by means of: 

1. Providing the feasibility to create and classify issues with all its relevant information, such as the priority, severity, status, assignee, type, the environment in which the issue is present, and more. You can also filter issues based on these criteria to view how many issues have an open status and priority as show stopper.
2. The presence of a feature to link an issue with the test which was the root of the issue.
3. You can generate a comprehensive issues summary report for communication with relevant team members about the entire issues data.

The below image shows the detailing of an Issue created in QA touch

Phase #5: Release and Sign Off 

This is the final phase of the STLC, and it is done when the software is delivered to the clients, and thereby to end users. The release documents are prepared and signed off by the testers, which includes their role, what all they have worked upon, and how much they have contributed to building the final product.

Major Problems Faced by Testers

One of the major issues faced by testers is when working on release document. While preparing the release document, they find it difficult to correlate and add the defect statuses of executed test cases. 

Solution via Test Management 

With a seamless test management tool like QA touch, you can create a unique Case Traceability Summary Report using which will be able to correlate which test cases were executed, what their corresponding Issues and Issue statues are. Using both Requirements Traceability Matrix and Case Traceability Summary Report, you can extract the end-to-end mapping between requirements, test cases and issues, to easily prepare a holistic and accurate release document.

The below image shows a Case Traceability Summary Report created in QA touch

Summarizing

If are a tester who hasn’t used a test management tool (or thought to) until you have read this, you would have known the processes found in a Software Testing Life Cycle, the challenges testers devoid of a test management tool face in each process, and how a test management tool like QA touch provides solutions to all those issues. Through all the reasons laid out, you now understand the imperativeness of a test management tool for your job as a tester.

Are you someone looking for an end-to-end Test Management solution that caters to all your expanding needs throughout your software testing process? QA touch offers diverse Test Management Plans customized to your project’s test management requirements. Reach out now to Request a Demo of QA touch. 

 

References

https://www.softwaretestinghelp.com/what-is-actual-testing-process-in-practical-or-company-environment/