Software Testing - Progressive Testing

Software testing involves verification of the software in multiple phases. The progressive testing involves checking from one component of the software to another. If two units have parent-child relationship, then along with the parent, the child and other related ones also need to be tested on priority, followed by other ones.

What is Software Progressive Testing?

The software progressive testing is also referred to as the incremental testing. It is a procedure which comes under integration testing. Thus it is considered as a strategy to carry out the integration testing on the software. The integration testing is performed right after the unit testing phase.

The software integration testing is done to confirm that there is correct interface, and communication between various components of the software. The progressive testing is considered as a part of the partial integration testing phase. Initially, it conducts the integration testing of an independent module, followed by combining multiple modules, and finally carries out the integration testing on the same. In this approach, since each unit of the software is blended in a step-by-step manner, it is also known as the incremental testing.

Working of Software Progressive Testing

Step 1 − The first step involves checking if the functionalities of individual units of the software are working fine in isolation as per the requirements. This is part of the unit testing phase.

Step 2 − The second step involves covering a large number of scenarios including the edge, and negative use cases using various input data sets to ensure a good performance, and completeness of the software.

Step 3 − The individual modules of the software are incrementally combined into the actual software or into its modules or sub-modules. The verification of connection between the independent components, combining them gradually, and detecting any integration issues in future are the major objectives of the incremental testing.

Approaches of Software Progressive Testing

The different approaches of the software progressive testing are listed below −

Bottom Up Approach

In this testing, every module is integrated gradually step by step from the bottom to the top till all of them have been combined.

Top Down Approach

In this testing, every module is integrated step by step from the top to the bottom till all of them have been combined. The stubs are utilized as substitutes for critical modules.

Functional Approach

In this testing, verification is done horizontally as per the functionalities of the software.

Hybrid Approach

In this testing, both the characteristics of the bottom up, and top down approaches are used. It basically implements the advantages of both these approaches.

Features of Software Progressive Testing

The key features of the software progressive testing are listed below −

• The progressive testing executes the integration test cases over all the components of the software.
• The progressive testing covers the requirements by creating the drivers, and stubs wherever required.
• The stubs developed for the software progressive testing increases the overall complexity.
• It is relatively easy to detect defects in smaller sub modules rather than the bigger ones at the time of progressive testing.
• The progressive testing is a time consuming process.
• It is easy to identify bugs by applying the progressive testing or incremental testing rather than using non-incremental test methodologies.

Best Practices of Software Progressive Testing

The best practices of the software progressive testing are listed below −

• The software progressive test cases should be prioritized with respect to the risk, business requirements, and criticality. It reduces the probability of finding defects in the production.
• The software progressive testing should encourage an environment of collaboration, and cooperation between the developers and testers by setting up a quick feedback framework.
• The software progressive testing detects defects from the early stages of the software development life cycle(SDLC).
• The software progressive test cases covering the tedious, and regression scenarios should be automated.
• It is very important to keep track of the progress of the progressive testing to identify the areas of improvement, to measure test coverage, and to calculate the defect metrics.

Conclusion

This concludes our comprehensive take on the tutorial on Software Progressive Testing. Weve started with describing what is software progressive testing, explain the working of the software progressive testing, what are the different approaches of the software progressive testing, what are the key features of the software progressive testing, and what are the best practices of the software progressive testing. This equips you with in-depth knowledge of Software Progressive Testing. It is wise to keep practicing what youve learned and exploring others relevant to Software Testing to deepen your understanding and expand your horizons.