The test process in STEM^TM exploits the stage of SDLC, skillfulness of the tester, prior history of defects and tools to optimize the test effort to detect high-risk defects early.

The various test processes in STEM^TM are:

• Design-and-Test: Involve early, use specifications and design adequate and effective test cases.
• Explore-and-Test: Given the software, commence quickly by exploring the software and then create the test cases.
• Analyze-and-Test: Given mature software, analyze the past history of defects; understand the system and then test.
• Creatively-Test: Invent test cases on the fly, being as creative as possible. This complements the other test processes as this exploits the creativeness of the tester.
• Automate-and-Test: Automate the test cases and then test.
• Standard-Checks: Using a checklist, test the standard common artifacts.
• Static-Test: Examine the code to ascertain the correctness instead of executing it.

The process of testing in STEM^TM is business-ROI-driven and therefore uses a judicious mix of static and dynamic techniques to examine the correctness of software.