The techniques in STEM^TM relate to developing develop test strategy, estimating effort, designing test cases, and making requirements verifiable.

EFF: Error-Fault-Failure Model>

Faults present in the system lead to failures when encountered during use. Inputs (with Errors) may precipitate these faults. This EFF characterizes the system as EFF model to understand the error injection opportunities, fault propagation mechanisms and failure impact. In STEM^TM, test strategy is arrived by creating an EFF model of the system and by applying the following thinking:

'Discover those faults that may lead to high impact failures, by performing appropriate types of tests as early in the lifecycle, in a cost-effective manner using a meaningful mix of automated and manual tests.'

This technique is used to design test cases that are adequate yet minimal. This technique models the system as consisting of dynamic behaviors that have to be validated by injecting different stimuli.

In this technique, a functional specification is modeled as two-part specification - data and logic specification. This is represented in a formal manner and used to generate test scenarios and test cases. This approach guarantees that the test case generated to validate the functionality is indeed complete and sufficient.

This technique is used to generate the end-user profile of usage pattern to generate real-life-oriented load, stress, volume, reliability, and scalability and performance test cases.

This technique ensures that each system constraint (non-functional requirement) is testable. QF converts a subjective non-functional requirement into an objective one ensuring no ambiguity.

QI models the customer expectation as a collection of attributes that can be measured and rated to arrive at an objective index of quality. QI ensures that subjective notion of quality can be expressed using a metric that can be constantly measured to monitor progress of software quality over time.