How can you create an effective test strategy for regression and exploratory testing?

From personal experience, regression testing is crucial in maintaining the stability and reliability of software over time, especially in agile development environments where changes are frequent and rapid. For instance, in a project I worked on, we implemented a new feature in an application. While the feature worked well in isolation, it inadvertently caused issues in a seemingly unrelated module. Thanks to our thorough regression testing routine, we identified and fixed the problem before the software was released. This experience highlighted the importance of regression testing in ensuring that updates or additions to the software don't negatively impact existing functionalities.

Regression testing strategy relies on two factors: 1. Product nature: This is the key factor for choosing a relevant regression testing strategy and careful regression test planning. For example, approaches to testing a landing page and a comprehensive professional portal will differ significantly. 2. Product scale: Large,medium and small-scale products For a small product, a single round of manual regression testing may be enough, while for medium and large products with rich functionality, both manual and automated regression testing may often be run. Exploratory testing is often described as simultaneous learning, test design, and execution. It focuses on discovery and relies on the guidance of the individual tester to uncover defects.

From personal experience, regression testing is crucial in maintaining the stability and reliability of software over time, especially in agile development environments where changes are frequent and rapid. For instance, in a project I worked on, we implemented a new feature in an application. While the feature worked well in isolation, it inadvertently caused issues in a seemingly unrelated module. Thanks to our thorough regression testing routine, we identified and fixed the problem before the software was released. This experience highlighted the importance of regression testing in ensuring that updates or additions to the software don't negatively impact existing functionalities.

Goals: Regression: Ensure changes haven't introduced bugs. Exploratory: Find unknown issues & edge cases. Priorities: Regression: Criticality & risk assessment. Exploratory: Potential impact & unknown issues. Automation: Regression: Automate repetitive tests with frameworks. Exploratory: Leverage tools for logging & reporting. CI/CD Integration: Regression: Continuous feedback through CI/CD pipeline. Exploratory: Schedule sessions throughout development. Track & Measure: Regression: Monitor trends for overall software quality. Exploratory: Analyze findings for recurring patterns. Additional Tips: Involve stakeholders. Risk-based approach. Maintain a test repository. Use appropriate tools. Communicate effectively.

Testing of a previously tested program following modification to ensure that defects have not been introduced or uncovered in unchanged areas of the software, as a result of the changes made. It is performed when the software or its environment is changed.

An approach to testing in which the testers dynamically design and execute tests based on their knowledge, exploration of the test item and the results of previous tests

From personal experience, I've found exploratory testing to be incredibly valuable in situations where the software's behavior is unpredictable or not fully understood. For example, in one project I was involved in, we had to test a complex user interface with many interactive elements. We didn't have a comprehensive set of requirements or a detailed test plan, so we used exploratory testing. Our team interactively experimented with the interface, trying different combinations of actions and inputs to uncover issues. This approach allowed us to identify several critical bugs that were not initially evident.

Exploratory Testing is something which every tester should do in their testing phase irrespective of whether they have an "exploratory testing" as part of their strategy or not. "Proactiveness" is an important attribute of a Tester and finding time for exploratory testing is what differentiates Great QA from Ordinary QA.

From my experience, any definition of exploratory testing needs other types of testing it complements - your test cases should cover a lot, but they can't cover the unpredicted and the unpredictable. And that's where exploratory testing comes in, DO the unpredictable where you can, SEE the unpredictable where the environment supplies it (hardware, other software, and the complexity of your own) and analyze what it does to your software.

Always keep some time planned for regression testing as this is unavoidable. If there is less time, I would recommend to have different regression suites for example, i) Full regression suites where you can execute all the test cases. ii) Semi regression suites based on criticality or the features/functions etc This will help teams to determine which suite to execute based on availability of time and resources.

Define Scope and objective of testing for efficient strategy. As per impact Analysis decide which features, function, Requirements, components need to be tested. You must prioritize the most relevant, critical, or often used test cases and, if possible, reuse or adapt existing test cases. You must also select tools that will assist you in automating, executing, and managing test cases rapidly and effectively.

Based on context and audience, identify section, features, functions of software product to be tested You must create an exploratory testing environment that can imitate real-world scenarios and conditions that the software product may face. You must also prepare the tools that will assist you in recording, documenting, and communicating your observations, results, and conclusions.

In my experience there are two useful ways of executing regression testing: 1. The first is on each pull request, where the CI/CD pipeline is responsible for automatically running a test suite which can be composed of many tests of different granularity (like Unit, API, Integration, Acceptance, etc). Along with this, the team can run a workflow with specific end-to-end tests that cover the parts of the software impacted by the given PR. 2. The second is to run a workflow with the entire test suite prior to the release, in order to verify if nothing escaped the tests on the pull request level, and ensure that all changes merged together don't introduce unexpected bugs. If bugs are found, they can be addressed before the release.

Exploratory testing is as valuable as regression testing. One strategy that I've found really useful when developing a big feature is to break it down in small pieces, which are built and tested independently, and that are hidden behind a feature flag (using a tool like LaunchDarkly for example), so that they don't impact existing functionality until it's fully done. When testing each piece independently, the QA team focuses more on the scope of the specific ticket. Then when the whole feature is done, the team can test everything together and thus perform exploratory testing. In my experience this approach increased speed, and helped teams to uncover many bugs and edge cases.