Risk-Based Testing
Risk-based testing prioritizes testing effort according to the likelihood and impact of failure in each area of the system, focusing the most scrutiny on the highest-risk functionality rather than spreading effort evenly. It's a strategy for allocating limited testing time deliberately, not a specific technique.
A risk assessment typically scores each feature or area on two axes — how likely is it to fail (complexity, recent changes, past defect history) and how bad would it be if it did (revenue impact, user reach, safety, reputation) — and testing effort gets allocated roughly proportional to that combined score.
This is what lets teams make a defensible call about what not to test exhaustively, which is unavoidable under real time constraints. A payment flow and a rarely-used settings page don't deserve equal testing depth, and risk-based testing gives an explicit, arguable rationale for that difference instead of an unstated assumption.
