{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,31]],"date-time":"2026-03-31T12:05:10Z","timestamp":1774958710523,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":25,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"2","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2025,4,14]],"date-time":"2025-04-14T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1744588800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Software"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Background: Regression testing is critical in agile software development, as it ensures that frequent changes do not introduce defects into previously working functionalities. While agile methodologies emphasize rapid iterations and value delivery, regression testing research has predominantly focused on optimizing technical efficiency rather than aligning with agile principles. Aim: This study aims to systematically map research trends and gaps in regression testing within agile environments, identifying areas that require further exploration to enhance alignment with agile practices and value-driven outcomes. Method: A systematic mapping study analyzed 35 primary studies. The research categorized studies based on their focus areas, evaluation metrics, agile frameworks, and methodologies, providing a comprehensive overview of the field. Results: The findings strongly emphasize test prioritization and selection, reflecting the need for optimized fault detection and execution efficiency in agile workflows. However, areas such as test generation, test minimization, and cost analysis are under-explored. Current evaluation metrics primarily address technical outcomes, neglecting agile-specific aspects like defect severity\u2019s business impact and iterative workflows. Additionally, the research highlights the dominance of continuous integration frameworks, with limited attention to other agile practices like Scrum and a lack of datasets capturing agile-specific attributes such as testing costs and user story importance. Conclusions: This study underscores the need for research to expand beyond existing focus areas, exploring diverse testing techniques and developing agile-centric metrics and datasets. By addressing these gaps, future work can enhance the applicability of regression testing strategies and align them more closely with agile development principles.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/software4020009","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,4,14]],"date-time":"2025-04-14T09:06:51Z","timestamp":1744621611000},"page":"9","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":2,"title":["Regression Testing in Agile\u2014A Systematic Mapping Study"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"4","author":[{"given":"Suddhasvatta","family":"Das","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85281, USA"}]},{"given":"Kevin","family":"Gary","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85281, USA"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,4,14]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Rothermel, G., Untch, R.H., Chu, C., and Harrold, M.J. (September, January 30). Test case prioritization: An empirical study. Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance-1999 (ICSM\u201999). \u2018Software Maintenance for Business Change\u2019 (Cat. No. 99CB36360), Oxford, UK.","DOI":"10.1109\/ICSM.1999.792604"},{"key":"ref_2","unstructured":"Fowler, M., and Foemmel, M. (2025, January 10). Continuous Integration. Available online: https:\/\/martinfowler.com\/articles\/continuousIntegration.html."},{"key":"ref_3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Lima, J.A.P., Mendon\u00e7a, W.D., Vergilio, S.R., and Assun\u00e7\u00e3o, W.K. (2020, January 19\u201323). Learning-based prioritization of test cases in continuous integration of highly-configurable software. Proceedings of the 24th ACM Conference on Systems and Software Product Line: Volume A-Volume A, Montreal, QC, Canada.","DOI":"10.1145\/3382025.3414967"},{"key":"ref_4","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Spieker, H., Gotlieb, A., Marijan, D., and Mossige, M. (2017, January 10\u201314). Reinforcement learning for automatic test case prioritization and selection in continuous integration. Proceedings of the 26th ACM SIGSOFT International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis, Santa Barbara, CA, USA.","DOI":"10.1145\/3092703.3092709"},{"key":"ref_5","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"29","DOI":"10.1007\/s10664-021-10066-6","article-title":"Test case selection and prioritization using machine learning: A systematic literature review","volume":"27","author":"Pan","year":"2022","journal-title":"Empir. Softw. Eng."},{"key":"ref_6","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.1145\/3057269","article-title":"Effective regression test case selection: A systematic literature review","volume":"50","author":"Kazmi","year":"2017","journal-title":"ACM Comput. Surv. (CSUR)"},{"key":"ref_7","unstructured":"Beck, K., Beedle, M., van Bennekum, A., Cockburn, A., Cunningham, W., Fowler, M., Grenning, J., Highsmith, J., Hunt, A., and Jeffries, R. (2025, January 10). Manifesto for Agile Software Development. Available online: https:\/\/agilemanifesto.org\/."},{"key":"ref_8","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"67","DOI":"10.1002\/stv.430","article-title":"Regression testing minimization, selection and prioritization: A survey","volume":"22","author":"Yoo","year":"2012","journal-title":"Softw. Test. Verif. Reliab."},{"key":"ref_9","unstructured":"CrowdStrike (2024). Channel File 291 Incident Root Cause Analysis, CrowdStrike, Inc.. Available online: https:\/\/www.crowdstrike.com\/."},{"key":"ref_10","unstructured":"CrowdStrike (2024, September 12). What Is CI\/CD?. Available online: https:\/\/www.crowdstrike.com\/en-us\/cybersecurity-101\/cloud-security\/continuous-integration-continuous-delivery-ci-cd\/."},{"key":"ref_11","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Coutinho, J.C., Andrade, W.L., and Machado, P.D. (2019, January 23\u201327). Requirements engineering and software testing in agile methodologies: A systematic mapping. Proceedings of the XXXIII Brazilian Symposium of Software Engineering, Salvador, Brazil.","DOI":"10.1145\/3350768.3352584"},{"key":"ref_12","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Silva, A., Ara\u00fajo, T., Nunes, J., Perkusich, M., Dilorenzo, E., Almeida, H., and Perkusich, A. (2017, January 15\u201316). A systematic review on the use of definition of done on agile software development projects. Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering, Karlskrona, Sweden.","DOI":"10.1145\/3084226.3084262"},{"key":"ref_13","first-page":"49","article-title":"A model for business value in large-scale agile and lean software development","volume":"Volume 19","author":"Heidenberg","year":"2012","journal-title":"Systems, Software and Services Process Improvement, Proceedings of the 19th European Conference, EuroSPI 2012, Vienna, Austria, 25\u201327 June 2012"},{"key":"ref_14","first-page":"1","article-title":"Principles of Lean Thinking","volume":"18","author":"Poppendieck","year":"2011","journal-title":"IT Manag. Sel."},{"key":"ref_15","unstructured":"Digital.ai (2024, October 28). 17th State of Agile Report. Available online: https:\/\/digital.ai\/resource-center\/analyst-reports\/state-of-agile-report\/."},{"key":"ref_16","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.1145\/3579851","article-title":"State of practical applicability of regression testing research: A live systematic literature review","volume":"55","author":"Greca","year":"2023","journal-title":"ACM Comput. Surv."},{"key":"ref_17","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"74","DOI":"10.1016\/j.infsof.2017.08.014","article-title":"Test case prioritization approaches in regression testing: A systematic literature review","volume":"93","author":"Khatibsyarbini","year":"2018","journal-title":"Inf. Softw. Technol."},{"key":"ref_18","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1189","DOI":"10.1109\/TR.2019.2892517","article-title":"Machine learning applied to software testing: A systematic mapping study","volume":"68","author":"Durelli","year":"2019","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Reliab."},{"key":"ref_19","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.1016\/j.infsof.2015.03.007","article-title":"Guidelines for conducting systematic mapping studies in software engineering: An update","volume":"64","author":"Petersen","year":"2015","journal-title":"Inf. Softw. Technol."},{"key":"ref_20","unstructured":"Kitchenham, B., and Charters, S. (2024, October 28). Guidelines for performing systematic literature reviews in software engineering. Available online: https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/profile\/Barbara-Kitchenham\/publication\/302924724_Guidelines_for_performing_Systematic_Literature_Reviews_in_Software_Engineering\/links\/61712932766c4a211c03a6f7\/Guidelines-for-performing-Systematic-Literature-Reviews-in-Software-Engineering.pdf."},{"key":"ref_21","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"336","DOI":"10.1016\/j.ijsu.2010.02.007","article-title":"Preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses: The PRISMA statement","volume":"8","author":"Moher","year":"2010","journal-title":"Int. J. Surg."},{"key":"ref_22","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"4961","DOI":"10.1007\/s10489-021-02635-5","article-title":"Confidence interval for micro-averaged F1 and macro-averaged F1 scores","volume":"52","author":"Takahashi","year":"2022","journal-title":"Appl. Intell."},{"key":"ref_23","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"205","DOI":"10.1145\/65943.65945","article-title":"A critical investigation of recall and precision as measures of retrieval system performance","volume":"7","author":"Raghavan","year":"1989","journal-title":"ACM Trans. Inf. Syst. (TOIS)"},{"key":"ref_24","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Das, S., and Gary, K. (2021). Agile transformation at scale: A tertiary study. Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming\u2013Workshops, Proceedings of the XP 2021 Workshops, Virtual Event, 14\u201318 June 2021, Springer International Publishing. Revised Selected Papers 22.","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-030-88583-0_1"},{"key":"ref_25","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Das, S., and Gary, K. (2024, January 14\u201318). Challenges and Success Factors in Large Scale Agile Transformation\u2014A Systematic Literature Review. Proceedings of the International Conference on Information Technology-New Generations, Las Vegas, NV, USA.","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-031-56599-1_52"}],"container-title":["Software"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2674-113X\/4\/2\/9\/pdf","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,9]],"date-time":"2025-10-09T17:14:09Z","timestamp":1760030049000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2674-113X\/4\/2\/9"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2025,4,14]]},"references-count":25,"journal-issue":{"issue":"2","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,6]]}},"alternative-id":["software4020009"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/software4020009","relation":{},"ISSN":["2674-113X"],"issn-type":[{"value":"2674-113X","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2025,4,14]]}}}