Test Process
Test Phases
The process of testing can be subdivided in several phases.
The different phases will be described in the following.
Planing
During the planing phase, the project will be analysed, to see what will at which time be tested.
Then a coarse plan will be developed, how to organise the other phases of the test process.
Some factors can be seen in the following list:
- Main and auxiliary functions
- Risk areas
- Test kinds
- Test environment (hard and software, documentation and tracking system, etc.
- Test tools
- Test input data
- Personnel decisions
- Milestones and time target
The test plan has to be done and agreed by tester, test management and customer. The test plan
is the basis on which all the tests will be developed.
The second developed document is the test specification. It contains some detailed
information about environment, global precondition and a short description of all single tests.
Execution
The test execution phase starts constructing and put into operation of the test environment.
After this, the test will be executed. This phase can be interactive or automated.
Analysis
The output of the tests has to be analysed and compared with the expected result. This has to be
done with expertise and can make use of control programs or check tests..
Documentation
After each test some facts and results has to be recorded to be sure that the result is reproducible.
- Date
- Tested version
- Environment data
- Result (passed, failed, not executable, ...)
- Result data
- Trouble report (if necessary)
Retest
The product goes back to the developer if an error occurs. When an error correction is ready,
the testing will be done a second time. Thus it should be secured that the error is really fixed
and no new error was added.
Figure 1: Error Sequence
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