STAG believes that there exists a "Science and Engineering of Testing" that should enable a professional test engineer to guarantee quality. STEM^TM is an embodiment of this Science and Engineering of Testing.

What is STEM^TM?

STEM^TM is the method centric approach that consists of scientific concepts to perform the different activities in the test lifecycle like design, strategize, automate, measure and manage. To ensure that these can be applied in a consistent way, STEM 2.0 in addition to scientific concepts has a set of disciplined steps to implement the same.
The highlight of STEM is its intense purposefulness to its goal of clean software. The key aspect of STEM is in hypothesizing defects and then scientifically figuring out when, where and how they can be detected in an effective and efficient manner.

STEM 2.0 views the act of producing clean software a THREE phase activity. The three phases are -

1. Do we clearly understand WHAT to do?
2. Do we know HOW to achieve this ?
3. How well have we DONE this?

STEM 2.0 consists of steps grouped by disciplines that are used applied in the various phases. The three phases and the associated disciplined are called STEM Way and represents that the process model for implementation. STEM Way is collection of THREE phases and EIGHT disciplines. These steps are powered by scientific concepts. These collections of scientific concepts are called STEM Core. There are THIRTY TWO core concepts that are applied in the EIGHT disciplines.

The wave diagram shows how much of each discipline is applied in each phase of STEM 2.0.
The first discipline D1 (Business Value Understanding) is applied more in the first phase and is still applied in the later phases albeit in a reduced manner. The key aspect is to understand that the various steps in each discipline are not phase-limited, but applied in a continuous manner across the three phases.

In STEM, a discipline has a clean structure . A discipline is goal driven and has a collection of activities to meet the goal. Each of the activity is powered by STEM Core concept to ensure that it is done effectively and not solely dependent on the individual. The highlight of STEM is its intense purposefulness to its goal of clean software. The key aspect of STEM is in hypothesizing defects and then scientifically figuring out when, where and how they can be detected in an effective and efficient manner.

Hypothesis-based testing(HBT) is a scientific testing methodology powered by STEM. HBT is a intensely goal focused. Its objective is to slash test costs/support costs, ease integration and accelerate development.