What are the steps to perform Regression Testing in Agile?

As the time window between software iterations and delivery is shrinking, the QA teams are faced with challenges to build a continuous testing strategy. This is aimed to keep up with the required changes and receive feedback from the production environment, among others. Even when teams are utilizing test data analysis, machine learning, or other technologies to streamline their Agile pipeline, there are challenges in delivering value continuously through regression testing cycles. If Agile is about ensuring faster time to market for a quality software application, regression testing is about confirming that a code change or update did not make any adverse impact on the existing features of the software application. However, for an Agile software project manager, regression testing can offer two major challenges:

• More time and effort: When it comes to large projects involving frequent code changes or version updates, end-to-end regression testing can be time-consuming. In fact, development teams often have to spend a large part of their time (even an entire sprint) conducting regression testing thereby defeating the purpose of Agile. Thus, the extra time and effort spent on such testing leads to cost escalation for software development.
• Team fatigue: Even when automated regression testing is in progress, the QA team, working in tandem with the development team, has to keep its focus on the job. This can result in apportioning less time to other types of testing. With regression testing being complex and time-consuming, conducting the same manually can be a recipe for disaster with the possibility of bugs getting into production. This again can increase the overall project costs and prolong the software’s time to market.

What is regression testing?

Regression testing is a type of software testing that confirms if a recent code change or version update has adversely affected the existing features of a software application or not. Here, testers focus on a set of partial or full test scenarios to be performed at pre-defined intervals when demanded. An end-to-end regression testing is triggered or executed when the following activities are performed.

• Modification in code due to the addition of a new feature or changes done to the business flow
• Fixing of any functional or non-functional defect necessitating the QA to confirm the absence of any side effects
• Executing periodic continuous testing for risk mitigation

Best practices for software regression testing in an Agile environment

It is important for a regression testing company to plan an effective test strategy that meets the objectives of Agile. The requirements for such a test strategy would involve the following:

• Collating all test cases
• Finding the areas of improvement to be made in the test cases
• Estimating the time to execute test cases
• Identifying test cases that can be automated and the ones to be tested manually

Execute sanity and smoke tests: Before commencing QA regression testing it is advisable to execute sanity and smoke testing to save time. As a subset of regression testing, sanity testing checks if the code changes made to the software application are working fine. It involves the following:

• Identifying new features or functionalities
• Identifying bug fixes or changes made
• Checking if the changes are working fine
• Checking related functionalities to understand if they are working fine as well

Smoke testing, also known as build verification testing, ensures if the software build can proceed with further testing. It offers a testing goal to the QA and development teams to understand if the software application is stable or not. It verifies the critical functionalities of the software.

Utilize test automation: Since regression testing in software testing can be time-consuming and cost-intensive, it is important to include test automation. Automated regression testing when executed in parallel can save time and effort, not to speak of improving the software quality.

Keep the regression packs updated: A regression pack consists of test cases that are run for every feature whenever the software is updated. The test cases in the pack are written as per the specifications document.

Perform continuous testing: As part of the Agile methodology, continuous testing entails ‘fail fast’ and ‘fail often’ to ensure defects are mitigated quickly before delivery with minimal impact on software quality. Besides, the CI/CD pipeline of Agile-DevOps requires the use of automated regression testing to save time and effort.

Conclusion

In the highly competitive Agile-driven digital landscape, version updates and code changes in software applications are critically important to maintain high CX and competitiveness. These changes require the validation of their functioning through end-to-end regression testing.

James Daniel is a software Tech enthusiastic & works at Cigniti Technologies I'm having a great understanding of today's software testing quality