Integration testing prior to unit testing: A paradigm shift in object oriented software testing of agile software engineering

Abstract

Objectives: The main objective of the paper is to investigate the paradigm shift in software testing with hypothesis "integration testing should precede unit testing for cultural transformation resulting in economic governance". Methods: The research method employed is real time as the authors involved in the development process in two reputed software companies. We considered five projects namely Vehicle Monitoring System (VMS), Easy Subcontracting (EZSUB), Key to Engineering (K2ENGG), Electronic Material List (EMLIST), and Feedback Database (FBDB). They are developed in Agile methodology. We observed the testing time with traditional approach and also the proposed approach which puts integration testing prior to unit testing. Findings: Our research in association with leading software development companies revealed that integration testing prior to unit testing has significant impact on accelerating and transforming to increased agility. Thus the hypothesis is tested and proved to be positive. This new approach in testing will go a long way in achieving agility at scale with increased success rate. Our findings can be summarized as follows. Integration testing prior to unit testing can take software enterprises towards agility at scale. The new paradigm shift can cause cultural transformation from traditional approach to economic governance through agile methods. It also could improve in various parameters such as time-to deliver products, efficiency in software development and delivery process, increased personnel morale and increased client satisfaction besides achieving high success rate in the context focusing agility at scale. The proposed approach resulted in performance improvement in all five projects. The average percentage increase in productivity and delivery for VMS is 27.62%, EZSUB 27.74%, K2ENGG 31.29%, EMLIST 30.83% and FBDB 33.33%. Application: To our knowledge it is our first empirical study that threw light on the paradigm shift in object oriented software testing with different case studies.