A Complete Guide to Regression Testing In Agile

Presently, when there is a chronic decline in time windows between software iterations and releases, testing teams are challenged more than ever to create a solid continuous testing technique that can keep up with requirements modifications, feedback from production environments etc. Few teams are leveraging test information analysis, while others are utilizing machine learning and other developed technologies to optimize their DevOps pipeline. Also, there is still a large gap in understanding how to continuously deliver value through regression testing cycles. In this blog, we’d like to focus on the topic of strategizing automated regression testing in agile environment, steps of regression testing and why regression testing is required. So let’s begin.

Why Regression Testing is Required?

Regression testing enables us to enhance the quality of the product. The central reason for regression testing is to define whether the change in one portion of the software affects the whole software’s functionality. Occasionally, it may affect other parts of the software as well. Test automation and continuous performance enable beneficial regression testing in agile. Regression testing in an agile environment assists to maintain stability in the software with every fresh product increment. Now let’s look at what is agile testing.

Agile Testing

Regression testing in an agile environment helps to strengthen stability in the software with every modern product increment. Regression testing in agile is utilized for a better quality software release. With regression testing, we assess the occurring functionality of the software is not affected by any new change to the code. These changes may contain mob320 product improvements, patching and the configuration modifications or more. Regression testing directs at providing bug-free software.

Regression testing assures that recent changes have not introduced new bugs in the software. It can be assigned with any localized or huger change in the software. Regression testing in agile is very crucial due to continuous changes in the application and deployment of these regular builds in agile. Regression Test execution in agile is executed through several regression testing methods.

Regression Testing In Agile Sprints

Let’s talk about the steps of regression testing :

• Retest All

 It is one of the regression testing procedures in which all the tests in an existing regression test suite are executed again. This is expensive as it needs more time and resources.

• Regression Test Selection

In this technique instead of selecting the whole regression test suite we choose a part of it for execution. Test cases are classified as: Obsolete and Reusable test cases.

• Prioritization of Test Cases

The emphasis of agile teams is to provide a working product to the consumer at the end of every development sprint or chase. Because the sprints are shorter in duration, it is necessary to make regression testing productive and fast too. This is eventually achieved by assigning emphasis to the regression test cases and enforcing the high priority ones when the time allotted for regression testing is restricted. The priority of the test cases is decided at the time of production of the regression test suite assessing the criticality and the business effect of the scenario being tested by a specific test case.

Regression Testing in Agile Scenario

Regression testing, on its own, verifies if the earlier functionality is working on expected lines along with the extension of any recent feature. Thereby, assuring smooth functioning of the broad system. Thus, for beneficial regression testing in an agile way of working, it is significant for a testing team to build regression test suites right from the preliminary development stage and keep on creating the same as the sprints add up.

Automated Regression Testing In Agile Environment

For continuing with the performance of regression testing, a regression test plan requires to be constructed first.

Here are a few steps that play an important role given below:

1. Choice of test cases for execution.
2. Recognizing improvements for test case redesign.
3. Measuring the regression test execution time and outlining test cases that require to be automated in the regression test plan.
4. Regression testing in agile also focuses on performance testing to assure the system’s performance is not negatively affected due to change in the code.

There are various ways that regression testing has been adopted into agile. This mostly relies on the kind of a product and the kind of testing it desires. According to the level of growth and stability of the product, anyone of the above approaches to examine test case selection and test plan creation can be chosen. For instance, Sprint Level Regression Testing makes sense when the advancement of a new release has just begun and the product will take time to get to a reliable version which can be tested end-to-end. End to End Regression Testing creates significance when the product is reliable and the planned release is close. In an agile strategy, there are also many approaches in which the Regression testing can be executed:

• Traditional Regression Testing approach: In this approach, regression testing is enforced after the development and just before the testing stage is finished. In an agile scenario, it is executed almost before every sprint.
• Delayed sprint approach: In this strategy, all the functionalities are tested in one attempt. Here, regression testing for characteristics developed in 2 sprints is done at the end of the deceased chase of the 2.
• Delayed week approach: In this approach, regression testing can be postponed to the next week if the product was not reliable for regression testing as planned. This is usually followed when the product development is in its preliminary stages and is not permanent enough for much testing. To avoid spending a huge time in regression testing, it is recommended to automate it.

Creating Regression Testing Strategy for Agile Teams

Automated regression testing in an agile environment is not taking the time and therefore is necessary to attain a good speed that the agile teams strive to gain. Agile testing is a software testing procedure that pursues principles of software development life process. It’s entirely about changes and making differences in necessities even in the future with better advancement phases. The central purpose of agile testing is to provide the product with tiniest functionalities.

Agile testing is an extremely quick and dynamic testing process. Usually, the sprint cycle is of 2-4 weeks in which the advancement is done for a modern feature that requires to be tested and regression testing needs to be done for the former features from the previous release which went into the creation.

Many organizations often partner with specialized software test companies to handle the rapid pace of Agile testing.

Steps for creating a Regression testing strategy are given below

1. Build a regression test script and with every fresh update, the test script can be modified and reviewed to verify its correctness.
2. Test cases that cover the error-prone areas should include mob320d. Sometimes, some functionalities in the application are so error-prone that those will fail even with the slightest modification in the code.
3. Good communication should be preserved amongst all the stakeholders. The testing team should communicate with feature engineers, product owners and developers to understand any change in the necessity to monitor and evaluate the same.
4. Purpose to concentrate on the risk areas (non-functioning of the existing functionality due to change in the code) that compromise on the quality of the product.
5. The automation test script should target all the probable methods to ensure bug-free product delivery.
6. With every sprint implementation, maintain a track of these failed test cases and include mob320 them in the regression test suite.
7. Evaluate the defect report as with every test performance cycle the automated tool produces a test report that specifies the failed test cases, which step in the test case was affected which in turn affected a particular functionality. Error tracking tools also develop screenshots and failure metrics during regression testing. This enables in recognizing and debugging the problem.

The Surprising Advantages of Regression Testing

Regression testing in agile is a crucial aspect of software testing. Let’s discuss some startling benefits of regression testing in agile.

1. Regression testing confirms more test coverage as it intends to enforce test cases for all the features of an application.
2. Regression testing in agile assists to provide high-quality software to the customer by ensuring system stability while recent features and bug fixes are added to the application.
3. Regression testing, in agile, when performed properly, enables the units to know in advance about a deformity in the software. This assists the creators to resolve the defect and prevent incidents on production.

Why is Regression Testing Important in Agile Development?

In the recent agile process, regression testing plays a very significant role. In the world of active markets, every company in the software development industry wants to go forward with others with respect to creating a much more progressive software. Agile exemplifies an incremental and repetitive development procedure. With the client needs and the continual changes evolving around the software in the agile way of testing, regression testing becomes a vital and essential factor in the test life cycle process.

Agile expects that the developed software suffers continuous testing and development. Along with encompassing the modern feature in the software, the existing functionality of software should not be affected. Consumers should be able to utilize progressive software without any issues. To maintain software dependability we execute regression testing in agile. Regression testing in agile ensures the code modifications done have not informed any bugs in the software. Regression testing in agile enables to mitigate the risk in the advanced software.

Regression testing is the standards by which we ensure the customer the ultimate product delivered meets his goals. We can say regression testing is the offspring of agile testing. It boosts development teams focus on developing the new product while maintaining vitality with every recent product increment. Complicated software development in agile compels both efficiencies in testing and quality to confirm any code changes do not impact existing characteristics. Regression testing in agile is accomplished whenever there are bug fixes, provision changes, system performance problems. Moreover, regression testing determines the performance of the overall system. With the continuous integration in agile aiming at continuously delivering an efficient product, regression testing stands crucial to be conducted in every release.

Also Read: Importance of Regression Testing in the Agile