What steps are needed to develop and run software tests?

The following are some of the steps to consider:

Ø  Obtain requirements, functional design, and internal design specifications and other necessary documents

Ø  Obtain budget and schedule requirements

Ø  Determine project-related personnel and their responsibilities, reporting requirements, required standards and processes (such as release processes, change processes, etc.)

Ø  Identify application's higher-risk aspects, set priorities, and determine scope and limitations of tests

Ø  Determine test approaches and methods - unit, integration, functional, system, load, usability tests, etc.

Ø  Determine test environment requirements (hardware, software, communications, etc.)

Ø  Determine testware requirements (record/playback tools, coverage analyzers, test tracking, problem/bug tracking, etc.)

Ø  Determine test input data requirements

Ø  Identify tasks, those responsible for tasks, and labor requirements

Ø  Set schedule estimates, timelines, milestones

Ø  Determine input equivalence classes, boundary value analyses, error classes

Ø  Prepare test plan document and have needed reviews/approvals

Ø  Write test cases

Ø  Have needed reviews/inspections/approvals of test cases

Ø  Prepare test environment and testware, obtain needed user manuals/reference documents/configuration guides/installation guides, set up test tracking processes, set up logging and archiving processes, set up or obtain test input data

Ø  Obtain and install software releases

Ø  Perform tests

Ø  Evaluate and report results

Ø  Track problems/bugs and fixes

Ø  Retest as needed

Ø  Maintain and update test plans, test cases, test environment, and testware through life cycle