Test Execution: A 5-Step Framework for Success

In our previous article, we made the point that coupling test execution to CI/CD pipelines has several drawbacks that become apparent as the complexity and scale of your application or deployment infrastructure increases. Let’s take a step back now and look at the initial need solved by CI/CD in this context: running your tests, which is also known as test execution. As with many things, giving test execution some extra thought and love as you build out your infrastructure can reward you in multiples. Let’s break it down.

Test Case Execution in the STLC

The software testing life cycle (STLC) is a well-established step-by-step breakdown of testing activities in the software development life cycle (SDLC). Test design is a crucial preparatory activity that influences later phases by ensuring comprehensive, clear, and effective test cases. At a high level, the STLC consists of the following steps:

1. Requirements analysis: Understand what needs to be tested.
2. Test planning: Plan how the requirements will be tested. The test planning phase defines the test objectives and results in the creation of a detailed test plan to guide the testing process.
3. Test case development: Write actual test cases. The test case development process is essential for comprehensive test design, ensuring all requirements are covered.
4. Test environment setup: Prepare your test environments. Smoke testing is performed as a preliminary check to verify the readiness and stability of the environment before full test execution.
5. Test execution: Execute your tests in your test environment.
6. Test cycle closure: Ensure that all testing activities are completed.

Source: boardinfinity.com/blog/introduction-to-stlc-software-testing-life-cycle/

The test planning phase includes defining test objectives, creating a test plan, and establishing a test strategy to guide the testing process and ensure quality and traceability across all activities.

As you can see, test execution is a specific step in this life cycle, and it in itself is a rabbit hole to delve into. Let’s do just that.

A 5-Step Framework for the Test Execution Process

As organizations scale their testing operations across multiple tools, CI/CD systems, engineers, and applications, managing test execution becomes increasingly complex. Effective test execution is fundamental to software quality and project success—it enables early issue detection, validates release readiness, and maintains market competitiveness.

This framework breaks down test execution into five manageable steps that can grow with your organization's needs.

1. Define: Establish Your Test Execution Strategy

Core Question: How will you define consistent test execution across your organization?

Key Considerations:

• Test Execution Priorities: Determine which tests run first, prioritizing critical features and platforms
• CI/CD Integration: Plan how tests integrate with your build and deployment processes
• Tool Management: Account for existing and future testing tools and their versions
• Data Strategy: Define input data requirements for data-driven testing
• Test Orchestration: Coordinate multiple tests across different environments
• Test Suite Organization: Structure automated tests, regression testing, and system integration testing for comprehensive coverage

2. Trigger: Automate Your Test Initiation

Core Question: How will you trigger test executions efficiently and reliably?

Triggering Methods:

• CI/CD Integration: Automatic execution as part of build and deploy pipelines
• Scheduled Execution: Regular intervals (e.g., daily security tests)
• Event-Driven: Webhook triggers based on infrastructure changes
• Manual Execution: Ad hoc testing when needed
• API/CLI Integration: Custom integrations for specific workflows

Best Practices:

• Schedule test runs strategically to optimize resource usage
• Ensure all test cases are executed as needed through proper suite management
• Combine automated tests with regression testing for comprehensive validation

3. Scale: Plan for Growth and Performance

Core Question: What are your scalability needs and constraints for test execution?

Scaling Considerations:

• Peak Load Planning: Anticipate maximum concurrent test execution needs
• Infrastructure Constraints: Manage shared/stateful infrastructure dependencies
• Long-Running Tests: Decide between parallelization or asynchronous scheduling
• Environment Strategy: Determine optimal mix of internal and external test environments

Load Testing Specific:

• Define required load simulation capacity
• Assess internal infrastructure capabilities
• Coordinate with other testing activities

Implementation Strategy:

• Leverage test automation tools for efficient execution
• Enable parallel execution through well-structured test suites
• Include performance testing and system integration testing for comprehensive coverage

4. Troubleshoot: Streamline Issue Resolution

Core Question: How can you effectively troubleshoot failed test executions?

Troubleshooting Framework:

• Comprehensive Logging: Ensure sufficient logs from both testing tools and applications under test
• Access Management: Provide appropriate team members access to logs and infrastructure
• Centralized Analysis: Minimize multiple access points for troubleshooting
• Data Retention: Define how long test results and artifacts should be preserved
• Security Considerations: Secure storage for logs containing sensitive information

Documentation Requirements:

• Review test artifacts and deliverables systematically
• Document all test execution outcomes
• Maintain clear issue tracking and resolution processes

5. Report: Enable Data-Driven Decisions

Core Question: What reporting capabilities do you need for continuous improvement?

Reporting Strategy:

• Metrics Definition: Track key metrics over time (pass/fail ratios, test counts, execution time)
• Data Aggregation: Combine results from different tools into unified reports
• Access Control: Ensure appropriate stakeholders have report access
• Dimensional Analysis: Enable analysis by team, application, or other relevant dimensions
• External Integration: Push results to incident management and issue tracking systems
• Distribution Methods: Choose appropriate formats and access methods for different audiences

Implementation Focus:

• Use comprehensive test reporting to document each test result
• Track test effort and monitor execution cycles
• Enable continuous process improvement through data analysis

Key Success Factors

Team Excellence: The test team plays a critical role in executing test cases across diverse testing environments and cycles. Well-maintained test scripts and automated test scripts ensure consistent, repeatable, and effective execution.

Comprehensive Coverage: Including system integration testing and performance testing in your test suites validates applications across multiple layers and scenarios. Executing all test cases ensures comprehensive coverage and software reliability.

Strategic Impact: Effective test execution directly impacts defect detection, release readiness, and stakeholder confidence, making it essential for achieving high software quality and project success.

Implementation Approach

Start by assessing your current state across all five steps, then prioritize improvements based on your organization's specific needs and constraints. Remember that this framework should evolve with your testing maturity and organizational growth.

Testing Environment Setup

Testing Environment Setup is a foundational phase in the software testing life cycle (STLC) that directly influences the accuracy and reliability of your test execution. In this stage, the testing environment is carefully configured to replicate the conditions of the production environment as closely as possible. While the testing team typically does not handle the actual setup—this responsibility often falls to developers or customers—it is crucial for testers to define their requirements and validate that the environment meets the necessary criteria.

A robust test environment setup involves configuring hardware, software, databases, network settings, and any required integrations to ensure that the testing process is both efficient and realistic. This alignment allows the testing team to uncover defects that might only appear under specific conditions, reducing the risk of issues slipping into production. By investing in a well-planned testing environment, organizations can ensure consistency across test executions, streamline the testing process, and ultimately deliver higher-quality software.

Test Execution Assessment Criteria in the Software Testing Life Cycle

Apart from the somewhat tactical approach to test execution outlined above, we can define a number of criteria that need to be assessed and planned for to scale accordingly with the needs of your team and your application.

Consistency – Getting consistent test results is key to building trust in quality metrics and downstream activities, and to that end, your test execution environments should be as homogenous as possible, given the context of your applications.‍

Decoupling – Test execution should not be tightly coupled to any other specific framework or pipeline in your infrastructure. The need to run tests will shift both strategically and tactically over time, and your tests should be available for execution whenever needed.

‍Centralization – While your tests might execute in multiple places in your infrastructure, managing these executions and their results in one place gives you a holistic view of your testing activities, making it possible to assess, analyze and control test execution consistently as your testing scales with your applications and infrastructure. Maintaining comprehensive test case execution records and organizing test runs by test plans further enhances your ability to track, report, and assess testing progress and outcomes across different environments and iterations.

Integration – Test execution commonly needs to be integrated (but not tightly coupled!) with your existing workflows and pipelines.Scalability – Running tests at scale is one of the most common challenges for teams embracing a proactive approach to test execution.

• The need to scale individual tests horizontally to improve execution times or cover more test scenarios
• The need for multiple teams to run their tests using a constrained resource (infrastructure, shared database, etc.)
• The need to scale load tests to generate the required load to ensure the performance and stability of your applications and infrastructure

Security and Access Control – This has several aspects:

• Who should be able to run tests, see results, etc.?
• If your infrastructure needs to be configured specifically for test execution, does that have any security implications?

• The execution of tests needs to be triggerable from a variety of sources.

• Notifications of test executions or failures needs to be integrated into collaboration platforms and incident/issue tracking.
• Test results or metrics might need to be captured by external monitoring or reporting tools.

Test Execution States and Outcomes

During the test execution phase, each test case progresses through various test execution states, providing valuable insights into the health and stability of the software. Understanding these states and their outcomes is essential for interpreting test results and guiding further analysis.

The most common test execution states include:

• Passed: The test case has executed successfully, and the actual results align with the expected outcomes.
• Failed: The test case did not produce the expected results, indicating a potential defect or issue in the software.
• Error: An error occurred during the execution of the test case, preventing it from completing. This could be due to environmental issues, configuration problems, or unexpected exceptions.
• Inconclusive: The test case could not be executed, or the results are unclear, often due to missing test data or incomplete test setup.

By tracking these test execution states, teams can quickly identify which areas of the application require attention, prioritize defect resolution, and ensure that the test execution process delivers actionable and accurate test results.

Handling Failed Tests

Handling failed tests is a critical component of the test execution process, as it directly impacts the quality and reliability of the software. When a test case fails, it signals a deviation from expected behavior, prompting the testing team to investigate further. The process typically involves analyzing the failed test case, reviewing the test results, and identifying the root cause of the failure.

Once the issue is understood, the testing team collaborates with the development team to report the defect and provide detailed information for resolution. After the defect is addressed, the failed test case is re-executed to confirm that the issue has been resolved and that no new problems have been introduced. This iterative approach ensures that all failed tests are thoroughly examined and that the software meets the required quality standards before release. Effective handling of failed tests not only improves the test execution process but also fosters a culture of continuous improvement and collaboration between testing and development teams.

Test Execution Report

A Test Execution Report is a vital deliverable in the test execution phase, providing a comprehensive summary of the testing activities and outcomes. This report details the number of test cases executed, along with their respective statuses—passed, failed, or blocked—offering stakeholders a clear view of the testing process and overall software quality.

Key metrics included in a test execution report often encompass test coverage, test execution rate, and defect density, enabling teams to assess the effectiveness of their testing efforts. The report also highlights any critical issues or trends observed during the test execution phase, supporting data-driven decision-making for software release and future test planning. By maintaining detailed test execution reports, organizations can track progress, demonstrate compliance, and continuously refine their testing strategies for improved results.

Best Practices for Test Execution

Adopting best practices for test execution is essential for achieving efficient, effective, and consistent results throughout the software testing process. To maximize the value of your test execution efforts, consider the following guidelines:

• Prioritize test cases based on business impact and risk, ensuring that the most critical functionalities are tested first.
• Leverage automated testing tools to accelerate the execution of repetitive or complex test cases, freeing up resources for exploratory and manual testing where needed.
• Maintain a well-defined testing environment that closely mirrors production, reducing the likelihood of environment-specific issues.
• Develop detailed test cases with clear steps, expected results, and comprehensive test data to ensure accurate and repeatable test execution.
• Establish a clear test execution plan that outlines the sequence, timing, and responsibilities for executing tests.
• Continuously monitor and report test results, using dashboards and automated reporting to keep stakeholders informed and enable rapid response to issues.
• Collaborate closely with the development team to resolve defects quickly and ensure that fixes are verified through re-execution of failed tests.

By following these best practices, testing teams can execute tests more effectively, achieve consistent test results, and contribute to the delivery of high-quality software that meets business objectives.

Charting the Course for Test Execution and Test Environment

The approaches outlined above are starting points, not exhaustive solutions. Every application infrastructure is unique, which means your team's testing needs will be equally distinctive. The key is to think beyond simply "running Playwright tests in Jenkins" — that approach will hit a dead end and prevent your testing activities from scaling alongside your application's evolution.

1. Map Your Testing Activities to the STLC

Break down your testing activities into the different steps of the Software Testing Life Cycle (STLC). During the planning process, define clear test objectives and establish a comprehensive test strategy. For each step, ask yourself:

• How are you performing this step?
• Who is responsible?
• What specific needs do you have?

2. Analyze Your Test Execution Process

Decompose test execution into five distinct steps and apply the same critical questions:

• What are your needs at each stage?
• Who owns responsibility for each step?
• What gaps exist in your current approach?

3. Integrate Assessment Criteria

Factor the test execution assessment criteria into your overall test execution strategy. Track and review key deliverables including executed test cases, defect logs, and reports to ensure all criteria are met. Discuss each criterion thoroughly — even if your decision is ultimately to "ignore" certain aspects, make that choice deliberately.

4. Involve the Right Stakeholders

Ensure these key roles participate in your strategy discussions:

• QA leads/managers
• DevOps/platform engineering
• System architecture (when applicable)
• Product ownership (when applicable)

The order of involvement may vary based on your organization's structure and project needs.

Testkube for Test Execution

Perhaps not surprisingly, I’m writing this article not only to share insights into test execution, but also to show you how Testkube can help.

Put simply, Testkube is an orchestration platform for test execution in line with many (but not all) points discussed above. The five steps outlined for test execution above are cornerstones for how to work with Testkube:

• Define your test execution using a powerful Test Workflow syntax that supports any testing tool or script you might be using.
• Trigger your tests however you might need to; CI/CD, events/webhooks, CLI, API, etc..
• Scale any testing tool horizontally or vertically to ensure your applications are tested consistently and at scale.
• Troubleshoot test results using Testkube results and log analysis functionality.
• Report on test results over time to guide you in your testing efforts and activities.

Testkube supports test automation by integrating with a wide range of test automation tools, enabling automated execution of various testing types such as regression, API, and web testing. It also provides automated test reporting to quickly analyze results and identify defects. Additionally, Testkube helps manage test artifacts and test deliverables, such as reports and documentation, to improve transparency and collaboration among team members, clients, and stakeholders.

And although Testkube can’t solve for every issue discussed above, it provides a grounded starting point. Try it out at testkube.io/get-started. There are both open source and cloud versions available.