Explain the life cycle of beta testing | Software Testing

Explain the life cycle of beta testing

In this article, you will understand the following:

• What is the lifecycle of Beta Testing?
• When to perform Beta Testing?
• What are the stakeholders and participants in the Beta Testing?
• What is a Beta Test Plan?

What is the lifecycle of Beta Testing?

Beta testing is performed by the end-user. It can’t execute without a test plan or test strategy. Before the testers, the end-users execute this testing. 

The process of beta testing follows the following steps:

• Planning: Like many other testing processes, beta testing supports proper test planning. In this stage, the testing team prepares the entire testing plan and the goal of testing. In this, the team establishes the need of users for testing, duration, and important details related to the process.
• Participant Recruitment: It is the second phase of the beta testing in which the team recruits a group of selected real-users for the testing. This might alter as per the requirements of the organization and the product. 
• Product Launch: When the team of testers is recruited, the beta version of the product is installed or launched on the client’s site and the users will test the quality of an application. 
• Collect and Evaluate Feedback: Once the tester is done with testing, developers of the product will collect the feedback from the testers and evaluate it. At last, based on the feedback, issues, and bugs are fixed by the team.
• Closure: When all the defects are fixed by the developers and the organization meets the exit criteria, beta testing is achieved and rewards are given to the testing team. 

When to perform beta testing?

As we know, acceptance testing is the final phase of testing which includes alpha and beta testing to ensure that the product is working as expected. Beta testing is performed at the user’s end. It is always executed after the alpha testing but before the product launch in the market. In this stage, the product is completed up to 90% to 95%. 

Any product undergoing beta testing should be reviewed for the entire checklist before launching the product on the market. 

Some of them are: 

• All the components of the product should be in a ready state for testing. 
• Documentation that we deliver to the end-user must include all the information regarding Setup, installation, usage, and uninstallation. 
• The development team must review that all the functionality is in appropriate condition. 
• Procedure to collect defects, feedback, etc should be verified before publishing it. 

What are the stakeholders and participants in the beta testing? 

The product management team, quality management team, and user experience team are the stakeholders in the beta testing and they closely monitor every move of the product. 

The real-time users who use the product are the participants. 

What are the beta test plans?

It can be written in many different ways:

• Objective: We should mention the name of the project and why we are even performing the beta testing even after all the internal testing. 
• Scope: In this plan, we should mention the areas which need to be tested.
• Test Approach: We should mention the testing approaches carefully in-depth, what to focus on functionality, UI, Approaches, and more. 
• Schedule: We have to mention the start and the end dates with timing, number of cycles, and duration per cycle. 
• Tools: Bugs logging tools and the usage of the machines should be done. 
• Budget: Incentives on the bugs to solve the defects. 
• Feedback: Collecting feedback and evaluation methods.