All You Need To Know About Regression Testing In Agile Environments

Efficiency and Timely delivery are the two major aspects when it comes to software projects (or products). You can lose business (and/or customers) if the product is not shipped on time. In order to keep pace with the fast-changing market, it is important to adapt more robust and responsive methodologies.

Traditional waterfall model is no longer suited for complex projects, which is why companies (startups and large enterprises) are leveraging Agile framework in software development. When compared to the waterfall software model, Agile framework is more flexible, responsive, lean, and iterative. Overall, it helps in continuous improvement of the product, that too on a timely basis.

Improved quality, reduced risks, and better team collaboration are some of the major benefits offered by the Agile framework. Since testing is an integral part of project quality, it is necessary to have different testing approaches (e.g. unit testing, integration testing, regression testing, etc.) a part of the agile environment.

In this blog, we focus on the ‘what’ and ‘why’ of how regression tests can make a significant impact when included in the agile testing environments. The learnings from this blog will help in building a rock-solid regression testing plan that leverages the benefits offered by the Agile methodology (or framework).

What is Regression Testing?

It is a known fact that code that is working as an individual unit might negatively impact an already working functionality. This is where regression tests can be extremely helpful as it helps in verifying the impact of the newly added code. It is always good to add/enhance new functionality but not at the expense of the older working functionality 🙂

By the end of rigorous regression testing cycles, you would have the confidence that the older and newer functionalities are working seamlessly in the product. Also, regression testing is a black box testing approach hence, it does not involve any development of test code.

Software businesses can partner with a regression testing services company to make the most out of regression testing in Agile.

Also Read – Regression, Smoke and Sanity Testing – What’s the Difference?

Different Types Of Regression Testing

As mentioned in the previous section, regression testing must be taken up whenever there is any change in the source code. Regression tests must be a regular feature whenever the software modules are integrated (or packaged) together, thereby ensuring that the existing functionalities work as a unit as well as a package.

Agile and Devops practices have become an absolute essential to adapt to the fast-changing market requirements. Hence, regression tests must be part of the continuous testing cycle. It is essential to make a decision regarding the types of regression tests that should be included in the agile environment.

Here are the major forms of regression testing:

1. Unit Regression Testing

As the name indicates, unit regression tests are conducted at the module (or unit level). They would only help in unearthing issues at the unit level. The unit regression test suite can be developed by the developer since tests are run at the unit level only.

2. Partial Regression Testing

Consider a situation where minimal changes are made to the source code and the majority of the changes ideally do not pose any side effects. In such a scenario, partial regression tests must be run taking the severity of changes into consideration.

Also Read – Regression Testing Checklist for E-commerce Websites

3. Complete Regression Testing

Contrast to partial regression testing, complete regression testing must be considered when significantly large changes go into the codebase. Complete regression testing is a must-have whenever major features are planned in the product. The new feature updates must not hamper the existing working functionalities in the product.

Why Regression Testing in Agile?

Faster time to market has become an absolute necessity in today’s times. This is why a linear approach to development and testing no longer works! Agile framework is ideal in such cases since development, testing, and release can happen at an iterative basis.

So, where does regression testing fit in the big scheme of things? Listed below are some of the prominent reasons why regression testing is a must-have in agile methodology:

Improved product stability

For starters, sprint in Agile refers to the time frame during which the scrum team works on a specified task. Thus, development and testing is performed in shorter sprints on a continuous basis. This eventually helps in improving the overall stability of the existing and newly developed features after every short sprint cycle.

Faster Bug Resolution

Since regression tests are a regular feature in every sprint, it results in locating bugs at a faster pace. Hence, fewer bugs make it to the prod branch thereby helping improve the overall stability and reliability of the product.

Better resource utilization

Since regression tests are performed regularly and issues are resolved at a faster pace, it helps in freeing up their bandwidth for taking up higher priority tasks.

Effective & efficient utilization of resources is one of the by-products of regression testing in Agile. An experienced regression testing company can be helpful in devising an effective regression testing strategy that brings the best out of regression tests and Agile framework.

Automated regression testing with DevOps must be leveraged so that regression tests can be executed on a continuous basis. Such an approach also ensures that regression test suite(s) are triggered even if there are minimal changes in the source code.

Also Read – Difference Between Regression Testing and ReTesting

Conclusion

In the first blog of our regression testing and Agile framework series, we covered the essentials of regression testing in Agile. Regression tests are essential to test whether code changes have not adversely impacted existing functionalities in the product.~

Choosing the right category of regression tests can go a long way in reaping the benefits of regression testing, Agile, and DevOps. KiwiQA is an experienced outsourced QA agency that has immense experience in creating regression test suites for a range of clients and products.

KiwiQA provides services related to integration regression testing, automated regression testing, end-to-end regression testing, and functional regression testing so that clients can release quality products at an expedited pace.