SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle)

TOPICS
SDLC (different phases) Types of SDLC models Role of Testing in SDLC Key differences between QA, QC and testing Testing life cycle (Test Analysis, Test planning/Test Design, Test execution) Types of Testing Roles and responsibilities of a QA Analyst/QA Tester Manual testing a. Test Plan b. Test Strategy

c. Mechanics of writing test cases

d. Analyzing requirements e. Writing test cases f. Executing test cases

g. Attaching requirements (QA Matrix)

h. Raise defects i. j. l. Retest and correct defects Defect life cycle Change control process

k. Issue Logging process Test Director Test case writing workshop in Test Director Introduction to Rational ClearQuest Introduction to Rational ClearCase Introduction to Rational RequisitePro Automated testing a. QuicktestPro 6.5, QTP 8.0 b. Practice test to record and play back on QTP and Winrunner c. Differences between Winrunner and QTP

d. Introduction to Loadrunner
Preparing resumes and Interviewing tips

SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle)

System Development Life cycle (SDLC)

What is a SDLC and why do we need that? System - an organized collection of independent tasks and processes that is designed to work together in order to accomplish specific objectives. The processes and tasks typically receive input(s) from and provide output(s) to other processes and tasks and even other systems. The tasks and processes may or may not be supported by automation SDLC refers to a methodology for developing systems. It provides a consistent framework of tasks and deliverables needed to develop systems. The SDLC methodology may be condensed to include only those activities appropriate for a particular project, whether the system is automated or manual, whether it is a new system, or an enhancement to existing systems. The SDLC methodology tracks a project from an idea developed by the user, through a feasibility study, systems analysis and design, programming, pilot testing, implementation, and postimplementation analysis. Documentation developed during the project development is used in the future when the system is reassessed for its continuation, modification, or deletion. SDLC Phases Phases in SDLC are Planning, Analysis, Design, Implementation, and Maintenance/Sustainment/Staging Project planning, feasibility study: Establishes a high-level view of the intended project and determines its goals.

Systems analysis, requirements definition: Refines project goals into defined functions and operation of the intended application. Analyzes end-user information needs.

SD

SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle)

Systems design: Describes desired features and operations in detail, including screen layouts, business rules, process diagrams, pseudo code and other documentation.

SD

Convert recommended solution to system specifications

Logical design: functional features described independently of computer platform

Study and structure sy

3

Physical design: logical specifications transformed to technologyspecific details

SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle)

Implementation (Development): The real code is written here.

Code, test, install, and support the information system

Integration and testing: Brings all the pieces together into a special testing environment, then checks for errors, bugs and interoperability. Acceptance, installation, deployment: The final stage of initial development, where the software is put into production and runs actual business. Maintenance: What happens during the rest of the software's life: changes, correction, additions, moves to a different computing platform and more.

Systematically repair and improve the information system

Products and Deliverables

SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle)

HLD means high level design LLD means low level design HLD: It refers to the functionlity to be achieved to meet the client requirement. Precisely speaking it is a diagramatic representation of clients operational systems, staging areas, dwh n datamarts. also how n what frequency the data is extracted n loaded into the target database. LLD: It is prepared for every mapping along with unit test plan. It contains the names of source definitions, target definitions, transformatoins used, column names, data types, business logic written n source to target field

SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle)

matrix, session name, mapping name.

Types of SDLC models
Once upon a time, software development consisted of a programmer writing code to solve a problem or automate a procedure. Nowadays, systems are so big and complex that teams of architects, analysts, programmers, testers and users must work together to create the millions of lines of custom-written code that drive our enterprises. The oldest of these, and the best known, is the waterfall: a sequence of stages in which the output of each stage becomes the input for the next. These stages can be characterized and divided up in different ways, including the following: But It Doesn't Work! The waterfall model is well understood, but it's not as useful as it once was. The problem is that the waterfall model assumes that the only role for users is in specifying requirements, and that all requirements can be specified in advance. Unfortunately, requirements grow and change throughout the process and beyond, calling for considerable feedback and iterative consultation. Thus many other SDLC models have been developed.

SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle)

To manage this, a number of system development life cycle (SDLC) models have been created: waterfall, spiral, rapid prototyping, RUP (Rational Unified Process) and incremental etc.

Life Cycle
Spiral model - The spiral model emphasizes the need to go back and reiterate earlier stages a number of times as the project progresses. It's actually a series of short waterfall cycles, each producing an early prototype representing a part of the entire project.

SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle)

This approach helps demonstrate a proof of concept early in the cycle, and it more accurately reflects the disorderly, even chaotic evolution of technology. Rapid Prototyping - In the rapid prototyping (sometimes called rapid application development) model, initial emphasis is on creating a prototype that looks and acts like the desired product in order to test its usefulness. The prototype is an essential part of the requirements determination phase, and may be created using tools different from those used for the final product. Once the prototype is approved, it is discarded and the "real" software is written.

Incremental - The incremental model divides the product into builds, where sections of the project are created and tested separately. This approach will likely find errors in user requirements quickly, since user feedback is solicited for each stage and because code is tested sooner after it's written. Iterative models - by definition have an iterative component to the systems development. It allows the developer to take a small segment of the application and develop it in a fashion that, at each recursion, the application is improved. Each of the three main sections: requirements

SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle)

definition, system design, and coding and testing are improved with each cycle through the process.

Rational Unified Process In its simplest form, RUP consists of some fundamental workflows: Business Engineering: Understanding the needs of the business. Requirements: Translating business need into the behaviors of an automated system. Analysis and Design: Translating requirements into software architecture. Implementation: Creating software that fits within the architecture and has the required behaviors. Test: Ensuring that the required behaviors are correct, and that all required behaviors are present. Configuration and change management: Keeping track of all the different versions of all the work products. Project Management: Managing schedules and resources. Environment: Setting up and maintaining the development environment. Deployment: Everything needed to roll out the project.

SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle)

Role of Testing in SDLC

Let us take (RUP) SDLC model developed by IBM to understand the role of testing in depth. Rational Unified Process (RUP) has 4 different phases viz. inception, elaboration, construction and transition phases. When we compare RUP with the traditional SDLC model, inception phase is similar to analysis phase, elaboration is same as design phase, construction phase is similar to implementation and transition phase is similar to deployment and maintenance. In most of the industries, as part of the RUP process, JAD (Joint application Development) sessions are conducted. These sessions give an opportunity for all teams to present their ideas and document them. Testing team generally gets involved in the inception phase, depending on the schedule. As you see the figure above, Test shows different inclination and declination. Inclination emphasizes the increased role of the testing team and declination emphasizes the decreasing role. Inception phase: In this phase, a tester will get a chance to understand the purpose of this project. Generally the information is documented by the architecture team in the ARF (Architectural reference document). Data architects, Information architects, System architects are the key players in this phase. Elaboration phase: In this phase, a tester will get a chance to understand how the project is designed and what all the systems are getting upgraded or downgraded based on this project. This is a major phase, where the entire design of the project is documented in the JAD sessions in the Business Requirement document (BRD), System requirement document (SRD), Product requirement document (PRD), Business use cases (BUC) and System Use cases (SUC). Architects, Business analysts, Project management, Development, Testing, Production support teams etc attend the JAD sessions to give sign-off on these documents, once they are completely documented. Business use cases describe the business process of the project. System use cases describe about a system, which is impacted by the project. Construction phase: In this phase, developers have a major role of constructing the system based on the design accepted during the JAD sessions. A tester has to follow closely with the development team to understand different changes considered by the development. There is always a possibility that the development can miss, misinterpret the design documents, in this

10

SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle)

case, a tester can always escalate the issue to the concerning developers to resolve the issue. Technical design documents (TDD), Interface specification documents (ISD), Software architecture documents (SAD) etc are generated in this phase to document the development process. During the same phase, testing team needs to develop the high level scenarios (HLS) based on the BRD, SRD, TDD, PRD, BUC, SUC, SAD, ISD. Each high level scenario can have one or more test cases. A tester must make sure that all the requirements are traced to a test case thru a QA matrix. Though its not compulsory to write test cases based only on these documents and there is always a possibility of missing some of the functionality, so we have to write test cases based on all possible sources of the latest updated information (latest signed-off updated documents). In many of the projects I have worked, sometimes I had to write test cases based on the verbal information given the development, sometimes on viewing the data flow diagrams and process flow diagrams. In this, phase, testing will have a major role for performing System testing, integrated system testing.

11

Term

Definition

Acceptance Testing

SDLC (Software Development Lifeof confirming readiness of the product and Cycle) Testing the system with the intent
customer acceptance.

Transition phase: In this phase, the system/software whatever it is designed is ready to rollout
Ad Hoc Testing Testing without a formal test plan or outside of a test plan. With some projects this type of testing is carried out as an adjunct to formal testing. If carried out by a skilled tester, it can often find problems that are not caught in regular testing. Sometimes, if testing occurs very late in the development cycle, this will be the only kind of testing that can be performed. Sometimes ad hoc testing is referred to as exploratory testing.

Alpha Testing

Testing after code is mostly complete or contains most of the functionality and prior to users being involved. Sometimes a select group of users are involved. More often this testing will be performed in-house or by an outside testing firm in close cooperation with the software engineering department.

Automated Testing

Software testing that utilizes a variety of tools to automate the testing process and when the importance of having a person manually testing is diminished. Automated testing still requires a skilled quality assurance professional with knowledge of the automation tool and the software being tested to set up the tests.

Beta Testing

Testing after the product is code complete. Betas are often widely distributed or even distributed to the public at large in hopes that they will buy the final product when it is released.

Black Box Testing Testing software without any knowledge of the inner workings, structure or language of the module being tested. Black box tests, as most other kinds of tests, must be written from a definitive source document, such as a specification or requirements document.. Compatibility Testing Testing used to determine whether other system software components such as browsers, utilities, and competing software will conflict with the software being tested. Configuration Testing

Testing to determine how well the product works with a broad range of hardware/peripheral equipment configurations as well as on different operating systems and software.

Functional Testing Testing two or more modules together with the intent of finding defects, demonstrating that defects are not present, verifying that the module performs its intended functions as stated in the specification and establishing confidence that a program does what it is supposed to do. Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V)

The process of exercising software with the intent of ensuring that the software system meets its requirements and user expectations and doesn't fail in an unacceptable manner. The individual or group doing this work is not part of the group or organization that developed the software. A term often applied to government work or where the government regulates the products, as in medical devices.

Installation Testing

Testing with the intent of determining if the product will install on a variety of platforms and how easily it installs.

12
Integration Testing Testing two or more modules or functions together with the intent of finding interface

SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle)

Key differences between QA, QC and testing
Quality Assurance (QA) - A set of activities designed to ensure that the development and/or maintenance process is adequate to ensure a system will meet its objectives. Quality Control: A set of activities designed to evaluate a developed work product. These activities can always include the audits conducted by the QA team to assess the cost of correcting defects, documentation etc. Testing: Finding defects by executing a system/software. (Note that the "process of executing a system" includes test planning prior to the execution of the test cases.)

Testing life cycle (Test Analysis, Test planning/Test Design, Test execution)
Similar to the system development life cycle, testing also has a life cycle. As testing is a part of the SDLC, some of the testing phases are combination of two different SDLC phases. Testing life cycle has three different phases viz. Test analysis phase, Test planning/Test designing phase, Test execution phase.

Test Analysis phase: In this phase, a tester needs get an understanding about the project. Test Design phase: In this phase, a tester needs to design the test cases based on the requirements and use cases. Test Execution phase: In this phase, a tester needs to execute the test cases written by him/her or any other resource and raise the defects, if any.

Types of Testing
Roles and responsibilities of a QA Analyst/QA Tester
The QA Tester will follow a documented test plan and be responsible for the reporting of clear and very detailed bug reports. The QA Tester will work with their fellow testers and Senior tester to ensure quality testing and bug reporting is maintained throughout the products entire testing process. The QA analyst will be required to analyze user requirements Understand and document procedures Develop publish and implement test plans Write and maintain test cases Create and maintain test data Clearly document and re-verify all defects Document test results Analyzing the requirements for multi-tier architected web-commerce applications from industry standard design documents. Developing high-level test design and planning documentation. Design, code, test, and execute test case scenarios Analysis of test results leading to defect isolation and resolution.

Responsibilities can vary for a QA analyst position depending on the job requirement. But these are the major responsibilities.

Manual testing

13

SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle)

Even if a company has the latest automated testing tools and technology to automate most of the business processes, but they still prefer manual testing. In most of the companies, 75% of testing is thru manual testing. Remaining 25%, which are mainly repetitive business processes, requiring huge bulk of data to be tested are tested thru automated testing.

a.

Test Plan

A software project test plan is a document that describes the objectives, scope, approach, and focus of a software testing effort. The process of preparing a test plan is a useful way to think through the efforts needed to validate the acceptability of a software product. The completed document will help people outside the test group understand the 'why' and 'how' of product validation. It should be thorough enough to be useful but not so thorough that no one outside the test group will read it. The following are some of the items that might be included in a test plan, depending on the particular project: Contents of a Test Plan Title Identification of software including version/release numbers Revision history of document including authors, dates, approvals Table of Contents Purpose of document, intended audience Objective of testing effort Software product overview Relevant related document list, such as requirements, design documents, other test plans, etc. Relevant standards or legal requirements Traceability requirements Relevant naming conventions and identifier conventions Overall software project organization and personnel/contact-info/responsibilities Test organization and personnel/contact-info/responsibilities Assumptions and dependencies Project risk analysis Testing priorities and focus Scope and limitations of testing Test outline - a decomposition of the test approach by test type, feature, functionality, process, system, module, etc. as applicable Test environment - hardware, operating systems, other required software, data configurations, interfaces to other systems Test environment validity analysis - differences between the test and production systems and their impact on test validity. Test environment setup and configuration issues Software migration processes Software CM processes Test data setup requirements Database setup requirements Outline of system-logging/error-logging/other capabilities, and tools such as screen capture software, that will be used to help describe and report bugs Discussion of any specialized software or hardware tools that will be used by testers to help track the cause or source of bugs Test automation - justification and overview Test tools to be used, including versions, patches, etc. Test script/test code maintenance processes and version control

14

SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle)

Problem tracking and resolution - tools and processes Project test metrics to be used Reporting requirements and testing deliverables Software entrance and exit criteria Initial sanity testing period and criteria Test suspension and restart criteria Personnel allocation Personnel pre-training needs Test site/location Outside test organizations to be utilized and their purpose, responsibilities, deliverables, contact persons, and coordination issues Relevant proprietary, classified, security, and licensing issues. Open issues Appendix - glossary, acronyms, etc.

Below is a link for a sample test plan. http://members.tripod.com/~bazman/frame.html

b.

Test Strategy

Test strategy is How we plan to cover the product so as to develop an adequate assessment of quality. A good test strategy is: Specific, Practical, Justified The purpose of a test strategy is to clarify the major tasks and challenges of the test project. Test Approach and Test Architecture are other terms commonly used to describe what Im calling test strategy. It describes what kind of testing needs to be done for a project for ex: user acceptance testing, functional testing, load testing, performance testing etc.

c.
i.

Mechanics of writing test cases

Analyzing requirements

15

SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle)

To write a good test case, a tester needs to understand the requirement. In what context the requirement is described and what needs to be tested and how. What must be the expected result etc?

ii.

Writing test cases (test designing)

A test case is developed based on the high level scenarios, which are in turn developed from the requirement. So, every requirement must have at least one test case. This test case needs to be wholly concentrated on the requirement. For ex: Lets take yahoomail.com, in this website, the requirement says that username can accept alphanumeric characters. So, the test case must be written to check for different combinations like testing with only alphabets, only numeric and alphanumeric characters. And the test data what you give for each test case is different for each combination. Like this, we can write any number of test cases, but optimization of these test cases is important. Optimize exactly what all test cases we need and what not.

HLS1
Requirement 1

Test Case 1

HLS2

Test Case 2

Test Case 3

iii.

Executing test cases (test execution)

Once all the test cases are written, they need to be executed. Execution starts only after the testing team receives the build from the development. The build is nothing but the new code, which has been developed as per the project requirements. This build is tested thoroughly by executing all combination of these test cases. Please dont be in a myth that we write test cases after the development is ready with the build. Development and testing has to go parallel. Remember, test designing is done purely on the available valid documentation. While executing test cases, there will always a possibility that the expected result can vary from the actual result while testing. In this case, it is a defect/bug. A defect needs to be raised against the development team, and this defect needs to be resolved as soon as possible based on the schedule of the project. A test case is identified by ID number and prioritized. Each test case has the following criteria: Purpose - Reason for the test case Steps - A logical sequence of steps the tester must follow to execute the test case Expected Results - The expected result of the test case Actual Result - What actually happened when the test case was executed

16

SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle)

Status - Identifies whether the test case was passed, failed, blocked or skipped. Pass - Actual result matched expected result Failed - Bug discovered that represents a failure of the feature Blocked - Tester could not execute the test case because of bug Skipped - Test case was not executed this round Bug ID - If the test case was failed, identify the bug number of the resulting bug.

d.

Attaching requirements (QA Matrix)

QA matrix is used to assess how many requirements have been tested and have test cases written for them. It is in the form of a excel sheet, which shows whether a requirement is covered or not. In case, we are missing a requirement which needs to be tested then we are not testing 100% accurately. So, there is a chance of defects arising when the product is rolled out into production. Sample of a QA matrix
Test Description Test Cases/ Samples Pass/ Fail
1.1 P/F

Test Case: File Open #

N/A 1.1

No. of Bugs
#

Bug#
#

Comments

Setup for [Product Name] setup Test that file types supported by the program can be opened Verify all the different ways to open file (mouse, keyboard and accelerated keys) Verify files can be open from the local drives as well as network

1.2

1.2

P/F

1.3

1.3

P/F

e.

Defect life cycle

i.

Raise defects

The above the figure displays the defect life cycle. The defects need not arise during testing only; they can arise at any stage of the SDLC. Whenever the expected result of a test case doesnt match with the actual result of the test case, a defect is raised. It is shown as create

17

SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle)

defect in the figure. We assign the status of defect as Open initially. Development will review the defect and determines whether to reject the defect or to fix it. Now the status of defect can be cancelled or pending until it is fixed. If the defect is fixed, they assign the status of the defect as closed.

ii.

Open Defects - The list of defects remaining in the defect tracking system with a status of Open. Technical Support has access to the system, so a report noting the defect ID, the problem area, and title should be sufficient. Cancelled Defects - The list of defects remaining in the defect tracking system with a status of cancelled. Pending Defects - The list of defects remaining in the defect tracking system with a status of pending. Pending refers to any defect waiting on a decision from a technical product manager before a developer addresses the problem. Fixed Defects - The list of defects waiting for verification by QA.
Closed Defects - The list of defects verified as fixed by QA during the project cycle.

Retest and correct defects

Once the defects are resolved, the test cases which are failed initially need to be retested and check for any new defects.

18

SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle)

This is a sample figure showing how many defects were raised during different phases of SDLC.

f.

Issue Logging process

Purpose:
The purpose of the Issue Log is to: Allocate a unique number to each Project Issue Record the type of Project Issue Be a summary of all the Project Issues, their analysis and status.

Link for sample issue log sheet

http://www.dijest.com/tools/pmworkbench/pmtemplates/pitempl/IMLOG2.DOC

g.

Change control process

The creation and implementation of the Change Control Process ensures the standardization of the methods and procedures used for efficient and prompt handling of changes, minimizing the impact of change-related incidents to service quality and improving service delivery. Documents are modified at every stage of the SDLC. These documents need to be differentiated based on their content. In this kind of situation, change control process comes into picture. This is a process of organizing the project documents effectively to deliver the output as expected. Based on the discussions between different groups, a document is assigned by a version number for ex: Yahoo.v2.3.

The initial draft is assigned as v0.0 and is discussed among various teams. Whenever there is a change in this document, we assign it a new version number as 0.1 and 0.2 and so on.

19