Regression Testing in Agile – All you need to know

Overview

In modern software development, Regression testing plays a vital role in the sustainability of product behaviors as a whole. In this article, we will walk you through some concepts of Regression testing in Agile development approach.

What is regression testing?

Regression Testing is a testing practice that helps ensure the performance of the application as expected after any code changes, updates, or modifications. In a complex software system nowadays, even a mild code alternative can lead to dependencies, defects, or malfunctions. Regression Testing emerges as an ultimate solution to mitigate these risks.

Generally, the software has to pass multiple tests before the changes are integrated into the main development branch. Regression testing is the final step, ensuring the overall stability and functionality of the application.

What are typical circumstances to apply regression testing?

Regression testing is executed under these circumstances:

• A new requirement is added to an existing feature
• A new feature or functionality is added
• The codebase is fixed to solve defects
• The source code is optimized to improve performance
• Patch fixes are added
• Changes in configuration

What are the benefits of regression testing?

Regression testing is vital in software development because of these benefits: 

• Regression testing locates new bugs or defects early in the deployment cycle whenever code changes. Thus, it helps prevent your company from spending much time, resources, and effort to resolve build-up defects.
• Apart from inspecting new feature performance, Regression testing ensures newly added codes do not conflict with existing features. Thus, the software team can find it less difficult to investigate the root cause of test case failures more quickly.
• Regression testing is an essential assistant in those projects that undergoes frequent code modifications and continuous improvements.
• With a rapid regression testing process, software teams can receive more informative feedback and respond to unexpected risks more quickly and effectively. 

How to execute regression testing?

Regression testing process

Regression testing practices are different among organizations. However, it will go through these typical steps:

• Detect the modification in the source code, then determine what components or modules need to change.
• Prioritize those changes and product requirements to organize the testing process with appropriate test cases and testing tools
• Determine the entry point as well as entry criteria to ensure your application satisfies the preset eligibility before running regression testing.
• Determine the final point for the required eligibility set in the previous step.
• Finally, schedule the appropriate time to implement regression testing.

Regression testing technique

There are three common regression testing techniques: complete testing, partial testing, and test case prioritization.

• Complete Regression: regression testing is executed on all test suites. This method enables the product team to detect and resolve all the bugs and avoid the possible risks in the future. However, it costs a vast amount of time and effort. That is also a reason that complete regression testing is applied under some specific contexts – for example, when the application is adjusted for a new platform or language.
• Partial Regression: run regression testing on some chosen parts that are potentially affected by code changes or updates. This technique helps reduce the time and effort invested in regression testing due to limited test areas.
• Test case prioritization: Software team will prioritize some test cases to implement first based on criteria such as product requirements, failure rate, or business impact. The test cases that are related to customer-facing aspects or newly added functionalities are usually high priorities to execute first.

Regression testing and Re-test practice

Although these terms of software testing sound similar, they are different in every aspect.

Regression Testing is a testing practice that is applied to ensure the code changes, updates, or modifications cause no effects to the application performance. In other words, regression testing is responsible for the overall stability of the system under continuous improvements. 

Re-testing literally means implementing the test case again. For example, you re-run that test case again after fixing detected bugs check whether the application can perform as expected or not. 

There are some different characteristics of Regression testing and Re-testing: 

• Regression testing is usually executed after re-testing practice. 
• Regression testing is applied to those codes that have passed the testing to ensure the new code changes do not affect the application performance. In contrast, re-testing is responsible for testing the failed test cases again and involves error verifications. 
• Automation testing is the crucial assistant for regression testing as it helps reduce the time and manual effort of testers.

Regression testing in Agile development approach

Agile development approach can bring various benefits and values for your business, such as speed up time-to-market, high product quality, ROI as well as customer support. However, it remains a challenge to balance the sprint development and iterative testing to avoid conflicts as the product matures.

Regression testing in Agile implementation is responsible for aligning the existing and updated functionalities, as such, eliminate unexpected risks in the future and ensure the overall sustainable performance of the business.

Want to know more about Regression testing? Check out this article.

Ultimate automation testing tools for regression testing

In the thriving pool of automation testing tools nowadays, there are numerous options for the product team to facilitate their regression testing. Some recommendations are Katalon Studio, Selenium, Watir, IBM Rational Functional Tester, Apache JMeter.

Katalon Studio offers an all-in-one automation testing tool that is appropriate for those with or without programming skills. This tool provides a testing solution for your website, web services, and mobile application.

Conclusion

Regression testing is vital in optimizing the quality and user experience of a software product. By disposing of defects early in the deployment pipeline, Regression testing accelerates the time-to-market of a software product, creating competitive advantages for a company to battle in today’s software marketplace. So it’s time to invest in regression testing to better control the budget, process as well as error mitigation of your software development.