Too Many Tests, Too Little Time: Smarter Ways to Tackle Manual Regression Testing

Feeling overwhelmed by the sheer volume of manual test cases you’re expected to run in a short time frame? It’s a common problem. Manual regression testing often turns into a race against the clock—forcing testers to choose between running everything or taking shortcuts and risking bugs slipping through the cracks.

In this webinar, you’ll learn how intelligent automated test selection helps manual testers focus only on the tests impacted by application changes. By running the right tests—not all the tests—you’ll save time, reduce repetitive effort, and gain confidence that critical defects won’t be missed.

The result: faster cycles, fewer escapes, less stress, and stronger releases.

Watch our panel of industry experts as they share practical strategies to make every test run count and keep manual regression testing aligned with Agile development.

• Learn how to run only the tests that have been impacted by code changes
• Hear how intelligent focused test selection keeps manual regression testing in sync with Agile development
• Discover how smarter testing means less stress and faster releases you can trust

The Challenges of Manual Regression Testing

Development teams are usually focused on testing new features. They want to make sure the new stuff works. But when you change code, you can accidentally break existing parts of the software. This is where regression testing comes in.

There are a couple of tough choices teams face:

• Don’t test regression during the release cycle: This means all the regression testing gets pushed to the very end. If you find problems late, it can delay the release. You might also run into unexpected issues.
• Test regression as you go, but don’t know what to test: Sometimes, teams ask developers what they changed. Developers might say, “Test modules A, B, and C,” even if they only made small changes to A and most of the work was in C. QA teams, not wanting to miss anything, might end up testing everything, which is inefficient.
• Don’t test anything: In some cases, teams feel they don’t have the time or knowledge to test effectively, so they skip it, leading to potential problems later.

Wilhelm Haaker, who works closely with customers and QA teams, adds that retesting everything when a project is moving fast is pretty much impossible. Teams often can’t automate every single test, so some manual regression testing is always needed. This becomes especially tricky with patch testing, where a critical bug needs a quick fix. Deciding what to retest can be hard.

Key Takeaways

• Manual regression testing faces challenges due to fast development cycles and the need to cover existing functionality.
• Teams often struggle with deciding what to test, leading to either testing too much or too little.
• Patch testing adds another layer of complexity to regression testing decisions.

Smarter Strategies for Focused Testing

So, how can testers run fewer tests but still feel confident that no critical bugs are slipping through? The answer lies in data and intelligent test selection.

Wilhelm explains that getting high confidence comes from data. To ease the bottleneck of manual regression testing, you can use code coverage. As you run your tests, you capture code coverage data. This data helps determine which tests are the right ones to run when code changes. This automated subsetting process uses code coverage to accurately measure which tests are safe to skip when retesting.

Nathan Jakubiak adds that when a team gets a new build, the system can automatically identify which tests need to be rerun based on code changes and the collected data. Testers don’t have to wait for a regression window; they get immediate feedback and know exactly which tests to run with high confidence. This empowers them to do the testing right away, even if it’s just a small set of tests that only takes an hour or two.

A Look at Test Impact Analysis in Action

Parasoft’s approach uses test impact analysis. Here’s how it works:

1. Capture Code Coverage: As manual tests are run, Parasoft’s coverage agent on the application captures which parts of the code are being used.
2. Identify Code Changes: When a new build is deployed, the system compares the new code against the previously captured coverage data.
3. Map Changes to Tests: The system automatically identifies which code parts have changed and maps those changes back to the test cases that originally covered those areas.
4. Optimize Test Sessions: Instead of guessing or running every test, you can start an optimized test session that only reruns the tests impacted by code changes. Tests that are still validated from previous sessions are marked as such, while impacted tests are clearly indicated.

This targeted approach allows testers to focus their efforts on areas most likely to be affected by recent code changes, saving time without rerunning the entire regression suite. It strikes a balance, ensuring the right tests are executed at the right time.

The Benefits of Focused Test Selection

What are the biggest wins teams can see from this focused test selection? Time savings and quality are obvious factors. When you can reduce the number of tests to run while keeping confidence high, you can better utilize testing time to test in the right places and more often.

But there’s also a more intangible win: reducing stress. When testers are under pressure right before a release, it can be overwhelming. Giving testers the peace of mind that they can safely focus their workflow on a subset of tests allows them to do a better job. They aren’t always feeling behind because there are so many tests to perform in a compressed window.

Confidence also extends to management. With data-backed insights, management can know that the appropriate amount of testing was done. The system can show which tests needed to be run and if they were executed.

Furthermore, the time savings can compound. With extra time, testers might have more opportunities for exploratory testing or even building automation, which further contributes to higher quality and saves more time down the road.

Applying Test Impact Analysis to Automated Testing

This technique isn’t just for manual testing. Test impact analysis can be applied across any testing practice, including unit tests, API tests, and UI tests.

When you run your full automated test suite, you collect code coverage. When code changes, the system identifies which automated tests to run. In a CI/CD pipeline, this means you can run a more targeted set of tests in your pull request workflow, providing better validation before merging code.

The value of test impact analysis is often proportional to how expensive or time-consuming the type of testing is. Manual regression testing and automated end-to-end UI tests are typically the most costly, making them prime candidates for optimization.

Importantly, this technology is test framework agnostic. Whether you use Selenium, Cypress, Playwright, or another tool, the solution works by capturing code coverage. Ultimately, test impact analysis optimizes regression testing for both manual and automated approaches by focusing on the most costly and resource-intensive test cases.