Today, when most companies are looking for solutions to minimize products’ time to market, in-house teams and QA testing companies are challenged more than ever. QA specialists are facing the need to develop a solid strategy for continuous testing that would keep up with changes in requirements and rapid updates in the product’s system.
Regression testing services in agile are what can help teams focus on new functionality and, at the same time, maintain stability at all stages of the product increment and updates. Without a doubt, regression testing in software engineering plays a huge role. Still, there is a significant gap in understanding how to apply regression testing in agile environment – where to rely on manual software testing services, when to add automation, how to plan mobile app testing services, and what to do to deliver real value through each testing cycle.
In this article, we are going to focus on the application of regression testing in agile software development, possible challenges, and tips that can help agile teams reach that high velocity and quality they are striving for.
Whenever developers receive test reports, they apply the required fixes to the software. In the process of introducing any changes to the system, new bugs can pop out of nowhere. That’s when regression testing comes into the game. If done right, regression testing can help improve the overall quality of the product.
With that being said, there are two major cases when regression testing is used:
That’s what applies to functional regression testing. Also, there is a term visual regression testing, which aims to ensure that no side issues will pop after modification in software visual design. Visual regression testing is just as important because it helps you ensure that the software looks just as good as it works.
This is a brief overview of regression testing to help you grasp the core idea behind it. To find a more exhaustive definition of this type of testing, check out our comprehensive guide on what is regression testing and how it is performed.
In agile teams, testing has to evolve with every sprint to make sure that previous modifications don’t affect the existing functionality.
The key to enabling high-quality regression testing is automation. Manual regression testing can take too much time. Since this type of testing requires constant repetition, it is generally a good candidate for automation.
How to develop a good strategy for automated regression testing? To build a solid strategy, it is vital to understand that agile project management and development implies constant changes. Therefore, to bring the most benefit, all regression test sessions should adjust to the dynamic environment. To ensure the continued high value of the regression suite, it is wise to build it with a focus on high coverage, robust test scenarios, and near-zero test maintenance.
The biggest benefit of automation over manual regression testing in agile is that it allows QA engineers to focus on testing various environments and merging complex cases. However, there are a few things to consider when building a strategy for automating your regression suite:
100% coverage of the regression test is rather hard to achieve. Thus, focus on covering about 70-90% of manual tests.
To make automated regression testing effective, it is why to perform it after you run manual tests at least once.
As a rule, automation is best applied to medium and large-scale projects. Otherwise, it may not bring a sufficient return on investment.
There are two major obstacles your team should be aware of:
Finally, analyzing all the information and tendencies of regression testing in software testing mentioned above, we can give you a comprehensive list of tips to follow when adopting it in agile environment:
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