How do you design and maintain a robust regression test suite?

Regression tests are one of the most tricky tasks that QA engineers have. Usually after a new release you expect the previous features to work smoothly. However, a new release can affect them. So organising a good regression test is crucial. Although it is not possible to consider all the possible conditions, by defining the acceptance criteria well and the statistics on how the features affected in the previous releases you can achieve a good regression test

Regression test doesn't mean ALL tests! . In automation, it's sometimes confusing to distinguish sanity, regression, and smoke tests. Which tests or folders in automation framework(project) are regression? Assuming we have a user story with some acceptance criteria (AC1, AC2, etc) - Sanity: Run a test for the first time when adding it; this serves as a sanity check for AC1 - Regression: When you run the same test against a new version, it becomes a regression test. It ensures the previously working feature continues to work. - Smoke: These tests check essential features like "Login" before full testing starts.

Regression test suite plays a key role for delivering a quality release. Key approach to follow: 1. Identifying Risk based test coverage in regression suite. 2. Ensuring all key BAU processes used in live is covered in test suite. 3. Prioritisation of test cases within test suite. 4. Ensuring test suite to be reviewed after every release to update, keep relevant and maintain optimal coverage 5. Automation coverage is regularly tracked for the regression test suite and results are audited for effective confidence on test results 6. Involving Product Owners to ensure business effectiveness is validated in regression suite. 7. KPI like Test effectiveness of regression test suite is regularly monitored. Defects should be identified.

Design a robust regression test suite by prioritizing critical test cases, incorporating automation, and ensuring comprehensive coverage. Maintain it through regular updates based on code changes and evolving requirements. Conduct impact analysis to identify relevant test cases and streamline the suite for efficiency. Regularly review and optimize test cases for relevance and effectiveness, ensuring a resilient regression test suite in dynamic development environments.

By identifying the key features and functionalities that could be impacted by changes, you are not only prioritizing your efforts but also mitigating potential risks. Establishing clear quality standards is equally important.

Designing and maintaining a robust regression test suite involves creating reusable and modular test cases. By breaking down test scenarios into modular components, such as functions or page objects, you enhance maintainability and reusability. This modular approach allows easy updates for changes in the application and ensures that if one module fails, it doesn't disrupt the entire suite. Regularly review and update the test suite to accommodate new features or changes, ensuring comprehensive coverage. A well-designed regression suite supports efficient testing, accelerates feedback cycles, and contributes to the overall stability of the software.

We shouldn't start by automating a feature right away. First, it needs manual testing with test cases. Automating regression tests is about saving time for manual testers, so they can do exploratory testing and other QA tasks. It's like an electric wrench for mechanics – it helps but doesn't replace them. Also, the feature must be ready for automation and regression testing, meaning it's in production and passed prior QA stages including Test-Case design and manual testing.

Automation is not the main responsibility of a QA engineer. You should automate the features that have been already tested manually and a clear understanding of its acceptance criteria is achieved. If you have done that use an automation framework like Cypress, Selenium, Appium (for Mobil) to automate the scenarios you considered for that feature. Also, using CI/CD tools and Infrastructure as code can help your automation process to become more reliable and useful. In today's world with many different devices and environments, preparing a good test environment that covers more and more clients' situations is as important as the scenario itself.

Maintain a healthy automation to manual regression ratio is key to deliver faster with high quality. Ensuring excluding all nuance scenarios other are automated effectively Keeping a modular approach in automation is key, to support effective automation runs based on the impact. Identifying limitations and brining innovative approach to cover the automation gaps enable the team to deliver more value to business.

To develop and maintain a prioritized regression test suite, key recommended points are: 1. Identify the core functionalities for business and based on the transactions highly used in production. 2. Identify key transactions which can impact revenue, goodwill, risk & compliance etc. in case of negative outcome. 3. Identify transactions which has history of not being very stable 4. Coverage from modules and are part of defects cluster. 5. Stakeholder feedback is vital for continuous refinement of the regression suite. Regular updates to the test suite are essential to accommodate new features and changes. This strategy ensures the regression suite remains relevant, efficient, and aligned with business and software development.

We must identify the changes to set our priorities. To track changes, we can rely on some sources like: - The list of tasks and bugs in the current sprint. - The change log, which can be kept updated in real-time by leaders during the sprint. - Checking the coverage of unit and integration tests. This tells us which modules or components are affected during commits, pull requests, or builds that deploy the version for QA testing.

-Identify the scope by identifying functionalities that need to be tested, and types of tests that will be performed. -Create a test plan with details: objectives, the types of tests, the testing schedule, etc -Use version control to ensure that the test suite remains up-to-date and that changes can be tracked over time. -Perform regular maintenance of the test suite to ensure that the tests remain effective and relevant - reflect changes in the application, and add new tests. -Use a risk-based approach to ensure that the most critical areas of the application are tested first. -Collaborate with devs to ensure that the test suite is effective and relevant. They can provide insight into areas of the application that are most likely to change

To optimize and improve regression testing continuously these metrics and approach has been really effective: 1. Defect Detection Percentage for test effectiveness 2. Test Coverage Metrics for thoroughness 3. Pass/Fail Rates to assess application stability, and Test Execution Time for efficiency. 4. The Automated vs Manual Test Ratio indicates automation's scope, while the Flakiness Score assesses test reliability. Tracking Maintenance Costs for ROI analysis. 5. Feedback Loops, Root Cause Analysis, and Historical Trend Analysis have been crucial for continuous improvement. 6. Re-baselining regression coverage after every key release. This approach ensures a balanced, effective, and continuously evolving regression test strategy.