Do You Know What Not To Test?

Release is tomorrow.

200 tests.

Time for maybe 40 of them.

What is the strategy to test?

Here’s how I filter the tests:

1. Follow the Money (and Trust)

Ask this: will failure impact revenue, leak data, or embarrass the brand reputation?

If yes to any one: keep it. If no, move it to “maybe.”

2. Impact Radius vs. Fix Speed

Think of four quadrants, no whiteboard needed:

a. Big impact, slow fix → full test now.

b. Big impact, fast rollback → quick smoke + make sure the toggle really rolls back.

c. Small impact, slow fix → test only if time left.

Small impact, fast rollback → skip, rely on monitor + rollback.

If ops can disable a feature in one click, don’t waste half a day on UI scripts.

3. Observability Credit

0 = no logs → heavy testing.

5 = dashboards + alerts → lighter testing.

Good observation buys test cuts; darkness demands coverage.

In a sprint we trimmed 186 test cases to 49 with these steps.

Shipped on time.

Logged zero S1s.

I use an one‑page checklist in every release. I pin it to my desk’s board. It so handy.

Do you want that checklist? DM me !!

#testing #qa #riskanalysis #strategy #impact #logs #manualtesting

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