Regression testing is the selective retesting of a system or parts of a system to verify that modifications have not caused unintended effects and that the system still complies with its specified requirements. It’s something that should be a long-term concept within an organization, not something for just a single cycle. It’s important to be smart about your strategy for regression testing because it has the potential to become costly if you’re not smart about it. Check out these tips for creating the regression test strategy that’s right for your organization!

Establish a Need

The first thing you need to ask yourself is, “Does my organization need regression testing?” The next question to ask yourself is, “How has selective adoption changed our organization’s needs?” After you’ve established the need within your organization, it’s time to decide whether automated or manual testing is the best fit.

There are a few common barriers to automated testing. It is more costly for one-time use, requires collaboration between the line of business and IT, and scripts must be created, documented and updated. However, is more cost-efficient over time and can answer difficult questions like what the effect of a change to other parts of the system might be.

Determine an Approach

There are a few things that you need to establish when thinking through your approach. Before you get started, determine what tools will be used and what data will be used for testing. You’ll also need to develop standards for documenting test cases, create those test cases, run tests and validate results.

Define the Scope

The most important thing to remember when defining the scope is to start slow and grow over time. When you define test cases, there are several scenarios that you need to consider:

• Create tests for easy business processes. Creating the scripts is the largest cost of regression testing.
• Create tests for complex business processes that are the most susceptible to failure.
• Create tests for customized business processes. There are the processes most affected by updates.

Set the Criteria

Finally, you’ll need to set criteria to define system readiness and exit criteria for instances like pass/fail, validating test results and quantifying the risk.

Additional Resources

Regression testing can also improve tools that help apply the change, like PeopleSoft Test Framework. For more information about benefits and tips for implementing PeopleSoft Test Framework, check out this additional article from Quest: “Benefits of Implementing PeopleSoft Test Framework.”