Optimization of Test Suites for Enhanced Resource Efficiency in Agile Environments

<p>Agile development methodologies are used to create software which is likely to prioritize speed and flexibility. Although these rapid cycles can cause quality and efficiency to be affected, testing quality and efficiency may be compromised. This paper introduces a framework for optimizing test suite during the risk based testing, tests automation and continuous integration. These elements along with the importance of them in improving the testing efficacy are reviewed from literature. Three case studies involving three agile teams studied their test process right before and right after implementing the proposed framework. It is shown that the resource efficiency is improved substantially by over a 30% decrease in testing time and a 25% increase in defect detection rate. Through our findings, we prove it is possible to integrate these practices to achieve better software quality and more attuned to agile principles and give teams the opportunity to push out robust applications in a very quick manner.</p>