Entry and Exit Criteria in the Process of STLC

Entry and Exit Criteria in the Process of Software Testing Life Cycle – In this post we are going to see What is Entry Criteria and What is Exit Criteria and how we apply this in each phase of STLC

Entry Criteria:

The prerequisites that must be achieved before commencing the testing process.

Exit Criteria:

The conditions that must be met before testing should be concluded.

Entry and Exit Criteria:

As mentioned earlier, each and every phase of STLC has Entry and Exit criteria. Let’s see phase wise entry and exit criteria:

Requirement Analysis:

A quality assurance professional has to verify the requirement documents prior to starting the phases like Planning, Design, Environment Setup, Execution, Reporting and Closure . We prepare test artifacts like Test Strategy, Test Plan and other based on the analysis of requirement documents.

Check below video to see “Entry and Exit Criteria”

Test Planning:

Test Manager/Test Lead prepares the Test Strategy and Test Plan documents and testers will get a chance to involve in the preparation process. It varies company to company.

Entry Criteria: Requirements Documents

Exit Criteria: Test Strategy, Test Plan and Test Effort estimation document.

Test Design:

In test design phase, testers prepare test scenarios, test cases/test scripts and test data based on the Requirement Documents and Test Plan. Here testers involve in the process of preparing the test cases, reviewing the test cases of peers, getting the approvals of test cases and storing the test cases in a repository.

Entry Criteria: Requirements Documents, Test Plan

Exit Criteria: Test cases, Test Scripts (if automation), Test data.

Test Environment Setup:

In this phase, in most of the companies testers won’t involve in the process of preparing test environment setup. Most probably Dev Team or Implementation Team prepares the test environment. It varies company to company. As a tester, you will be given an installation document to setup test environment. Readiness of the given test environment.

Entry Criteria: Test Plan, Smoke Test cases, Test Data

Exit Criteria: Test Environment, Smoke Test Results

Test Execution:

In this phase, testers involve in execution of test cases, reporting the defects and updating the requirement traceability matrix.

Entry Criteria: Test Plan document, Test cases, Test data, Test Environment

Exit Criteria: Test case execution report. Defect report, RTM

Test Closure:

Traditionally this is the final phase of testing. Test lead involves in preparing Test Metrics and Test Closure Report. Test lead sends out test closure report once the testing process is completed

Entry Criteria: Test case Execution report (make sure there are no high severity defects opened), Defect report
Exit Criteria: Test Closure report, Test metrics