What are steps of software testing life cycle? [closed]

Question

After picking up some priority backlogs, what exactly is the role of a QA tester? I mean what are the actual steps, starting from understanding the requirements and types of documentation if needed?

I know there is a lot of stuff on the internet, but it isn't really helpful.

Answer 1

I was given this webpage to read, by my QA Manager: tips for quality testing. It really tells you what testers need to do to be a good tester.

A few pointers I have learnt from reading such material, is:

1. Find quality bugs and not quantity of bugs
2. Prepare your documents early, as in create your documents / test scripts early before you start actual testing (I'm guilty here again).

I was also given this webpage to have a read through : Things that all testers should stop doing. There is a point in this article (that I mentioned above):

Power is not in numbers : It’s never the amount of defects you should be headed to, but their value. If you have located 10, 30, 50, no matter, defects during the session priorities them first and then only decide what to do with them. Some may require rapid attention from developers, others can wait. No actual matter what the case, you should be responsible for highlighting places that require immediate fixes and if you will report a whole bunch of multi-level bugs, you will only achieve chaos. Developers are like children; don’t make things even more complicated for them.

Answer 2

It is my opinion that QA, Typically on a team using Agile development methodology, is an integral part of the software production team. Your primary goal is to verify developed software is appropriate to be released to the client by analyzing from their perspective. Here is a list of some of the typical responsibilities i have or have had as a QA analyst.

1. Write documentation.
2. Design and implement use cases(Common relevant processes the user performs on a frequent basis) and additional test cases to be run against feature cases and or bug fixes.
3. Designing Automated black box testing.
4. Planning regression tests suites.
5. Performing research into best practices and helping the development process as a whole in terms of QA.
6. Analyzing new development in terms of risk and using that risk to help guide development.

In terms of an average day at my company if there is feature cases or bug fixes they are top priority above everything else. Patches are above roll out. Our goal is to get patches out as quickly as possible so I start with those then move on to the roll out items. Once testing is performed i move on to either wiki documentation for new functionality or i develop black box automated testing using C# and Selenium Web driver. Occasionally i will spend this extra time performing research on best QA practices to enhance the company and my overall process. Two books i would recommend are the following to get a better grasp of QA.

1. Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Testers and Agile Teams
2. Lesssons Learned in Software Testing

Anything by Greggory or Bach is solid i know Bach has his own website you can find here.

Answer 3

This might help: http://www.allthingsquality.com/2010/04/what-do-qaers-and-testers-do.html

Every company is different. But here are some of the things my QA Teams do, in no particular order.

• Review and respond to requirements
• Participate in design reviews
• Participate in architecture reviews
• Create and maintain Test Cases
• Execute Test Cases
• Exploratory testing
• Functional testing
• Load/Stress/Volume/Performance testing
• Security testing
• Internationalization testing
• Localization testing
• Usability testing
• Installation testing, post-installation testing
• Data testing
• Release testing
• Analyze Results
• Write and update Bug Reports
• Create and distribute Bug Status Reports
• Create and Maintain test automation assets
• Test Help
• Test Documentation
• Verify bug fixes
• Create test data
• Participate in Code Reviews
• Conduct "Lessons Learned" sessions
• Mentor junior testers/QAers
• Conduct interviews of potential team members
• Plan for future releases
• Provide estimates of required test efforts
• Attend miscellaneous meetings
• Research upcoming releases, new technologies, and new methods
• Teach others about products which have just been tested
• Set up and maintain test environments
• Discuss features, bugs, etc with Developers, Support and Product Management
• Reproduce customer-reported problems
• Publish lists of fixed bugs for customers
• Maintain a Knowledge Base of known problems, limitations, workarounds
• Validate new tools
• Validate new methods and procedures
• Chair the Production Control Board Keep track of upcoming releases to platforms of interest (such as Windows and Internet Explorer versions)