This article explains about Different steps in Life Cycle of Testing Process. In Each phase of the development process will have a specific input and a specific output. Once the project is confirmed to start, the phases of the development of project can be divided into the following phases:

·         Software requirements phase.

·         Software Design

·         Implementation

·         Testing

·         Maintenance

In the whole development process, testing consumes highest amount of time. But most of the developers oversee that and testing phase is generally neglected. As a consequence, erroneous software is released. The testing team should be involved right from the requirements stage itself.

Requirements Stage

During requirement phase the Testing team is evolved in creating Test Plan. Without a good plan, no work is a success. A successful work always contains a good plan. The testing process of software should also require good plan. Test plan document is the most important document that brings in a process – oriented approach. A test plan document should be prepared after the requirements of the project are confirmed. The test plan document must consist of the following information:

·         Total number of features to be tested.

·         Testing approaches to be followed.

·         The testing methodologies

·         Number of man-hours required.

·         Resources required for the whole testing process.

·         The testing tools that are to be used.

·         The test cases, etc

Design Stage

In Software Design phase the testing team starts preparing Test Cases. Test cases should be prepared based on the following scenarios:

·         Positive scenarios

·         Negative scenarios

·         Boundary conditions

·         Real World scenarios

Implementation Stage

In Implantations stage the test case, test bed and requirement s are reviewed. It can be done by the peer of the seniors. 

Following thing are taken into consideration

·         All scenarios are covered.

·         No. of test cases are not too large and not small.

·         No test cases are duplicate.

·         Format, and description are self explanatory

Testing Stage

Once the unit testing is completed and the code is released to QA, the functional testing is done. A top-level testing is done at the beginning of the testing to find out the top-level failures. After top  level testing completes then the test cases are executed to verify each and every scenarios. The bugs identified should be reported to the developer immediately to get the required workaround.
The test reports should be documented properly and the bugs have to be reported to the developer after the testing is completed.

Maintenance Stage

In the maintenance stage the bugs or any changes unearthed by the client is implemented by the developer and assigned to the Tester for verification.

So testing in involved in all phases of the software life cycle.