Answer - The following are some of the steps to consider: • Obtain requirements, functional design, and internal design specifications and other necessary documents • Obtain budget and schedule requirements • Determine project-related personnel and their responsibilities, reporting requirements, required standards and processes (such as release processes, change processes, etc.) • Identify application's higher-risk aspects, set priorities, and determine scope and limitations of tests • Determine test approaches and methods - unit, integration, functional, system, load, usability tests, etc. • Determine test environment requirements (hardware, software, communications, etc.) • Determine testware requirements (record/playback tools, coverage analyzers, test tracking, problem/bug tracking, etc.) • Determine test input data requirements • Identify tasks, those responsible for tasks, and labor requirements • Set schedule estimates, timelines, milestones • Determine input equivalence classes, boundary value analyses, error classes • Prepare test plan document and have needed reviews/approvals • Write test cases • Have needed reviews/inspections/approvals of test cases • Prepare test environment and testware, obtain needed user manuals/reference documents/configuration guides/installation guides, set up test tracking processes, set up logging and archiving processes, set up or obtain test input data • Obtain and install software releases • Perform tests • Evaluate and report results • Track problems/bugs and fixes • Retest as needed • Maintain and update test plans, test cases, test environment, and testware through life cycle