The risk avoidance strategy involves taking actions to remove the threat or condition that represents the risk entirely, essentially ensuring that the risk event doesn't occur. This strategy is employed when risks are deemed too high and cannot be mitigated.

In the V-model, each development stage corresponds to a testing phase. As the development progresses downwards on the left side of the "V", testing activities are prepared. When development reaches integration and system levels, the testing phases commence upwards on the right side of the "V". This ensures that testing is integrated in parallel with development, unlike the Waterfall model where testing happens after the entire development phase.

In white-box testing, "coverage" refers to the amount or percentage of the codebase that has been tested. It provides an objective measure to ensure that most, if not all, paths, branches, statements, and conditions in the code have been exercised.

The closing meeting is the phase during the review process where all identified issues, findings, and observations are finalized, documented, and agreed upon by all participants. This step ensures that there's clarity on the identified defects and the action items required to rectify them.

Configuration Management (CM) in CI/CD pipelines manages and tracks changes to ensure that all configurations are consistently integrated and deployed. This means CM keeps a record of all versions, changes, and configurations so that teams can retrieve previous versions and configurations if needed, ensuring repeatability and recoverability. The primary role of CM is to provide a controlled method to manage changes to both the application code and the environments where the application runs.

The primary goal of "Risk Identification" is to list out or pinpoint all potential threats or risks that could impact the quality or timeline of the project. While the root cause analysis, documentation, and prioritization are essential, they come after the risks have been clearly identified.

The choice of tools for automated testing often depends on the software's architecture. Different architectures might require specialized tools or have certain constraints that make one tool more suited over another. For instance, a web application and a mobile application would have different automation tool requirements.

Git is a widely-used Configuration Management tool. It helps developers track and control changes in the software, allowing multiple developers to collaborate on a project simultaneously without interfering with each other's changes, and helps maintain version history.

The Test Manager oversees the entire testing process and ensures that all testing activities align with the project timelines and budget. They coordinate between stakeholders and the testing team, ensuring that the testing phase progresses smoothly.

Automated test suites, which consist of a collection of test scripts, test data, and execution sequences, require effective management to ensure organized execution and reporting. Test Management tools offer capabilities to define, organize, and execute tests, as well as to report defects and generate metrics, streamlining the automation workflow.

Decision Coverage in white-box testing ensures that each decision point or branch has been executed for both 'true' and 'false' conditions. It is more robust than simple statement coverage because it ensures that each decision leads the control flow in both directions.

Exit criteria in the Software Testing Life Cycle (STLC) are a pre-defined set of conditions or metrics which must be achieved to conclude a testing phase. These conditions could include factors like achieving a certain percentage of test coverage, a limited number of high-severity defects remaining open, meeting performance benchmarks, etc. Having a clear exit criteria ensures that a testing phase achieves its intended quality objectives before moving to the next phase.