What is testing? Who does testing? When to start testing and when to stop testing?

What is testing? Who does testing? When to start testing and when to stop testing?

What is testing?

Testing is a process of exercising and evaluating a system component by means of manual or automation to ensure that the system is satisfying the customer requirements or not?

OR

Process of identifying the defects is also known as testing. Or In other words software testing is a verification and validation process.

Who does testing?

It depends on the process and the associated stakeholders of the project(s). In the IT

Industry, large companies have a team with responsibilities to evaluate the developed software in the context of the given requirements. Moreover, developers also conduct testing which is called Unit Testing. In most cases, following professionals are involved in testing of a system within their respective capacities:

1. Software Tester

2. Software Developer

3. Project Lead/Manager

4. End User

Different companies have different designations for people who test the software on the basis of their experience and knowledge such as Software Tester, Software Quality Assurance Engineer, and QA Analyst etc.

When to Start Testing?

An early start to testing reduces the cost, time to rework and error free software that is delivered to the client. However in Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) testing can be started from the Requirements Gathering phase and lasts till the deployment of the software. However it also depends on the development model that is being used. For example in Water fall model formal testing is conducted in the Testing phase, but in incremental model, testing is performed at the end of every increment/iteration and at the end the whole application is tested.

Testing is done in different forms at every phase of SDLC like during Requirement gathering phase, the analysis and verifications of requirements are also considered testing. Reviewing the design in the design phase with intent to improve the design is also considered as testing. Testing performed by a developer on completion of the code is also categorized as Unit type of testing.

When to Stop Testing?

Unlike when to start testing it is difficult to determine when to stop testing, as testing is a never ending process and no one can say that any software is 100% tested. Following are the aspects which should be considered to stop the testing:

1. Testing Deadlines.

2. Completion of test case execution.

3. Completion of Functional and code coverage to a certain point.

4. Bug rate falls below a certain level and no high priority bugs are identified.

5. Management decision.

Complete testing material

Testing basic interview questions