Effective Test Automation Development Strategy

Every user now wants lighting speed along with multiple features, exceptional visual appearance along with frequent updates for better performance. Keeping in mind the cut-throat competition; effective and value added QA is not possible with only manual effort.

Test automation has come a long way in this tech industry. It’s a mandate now to get all your tests automated in the timely manner and parallel development of test suites in the development cycle.

The successful implementation of the testing automation process lies in the strategy.

Key Elements of Successful Test Automation Strategy:

• Scope and Goal Outline: It is very important to identify the right set of tests (mostly starting from critical to high tests) to be automated – Covering both Services level and UI Tests. Test automation suits best for repetitive actions, multiple device and browser testing, filling up forms with different inputs etc. to save time and effort in every release cycle. Test cases that are not required to be executed shall be avoided initially. There are also test cases that are human cognition dependent and should be identified before the automation kicks off.
• Right Tool Selection: The goal of Automation is always to reduce cost, help in quick turnaround and maximize the return on investment. Selection of the right automation tool is very important and plays a major role in minimizing the overall cost. It’s very important to do the POC initially for selecting the right tool. It shall not be the straight choice to choose open source due to cost factors but considering all the required aspects, ease to automate, integration flexibility and keeping a long term plan in mind.
• Approach Establishment: A roadmap is the key for an Automation project to become successful. Defining the priority of test cases helps in deciding which test cases to start with automation. A timeline should be defined within which automation of a certain number of test cases should be achieved. A burndown chart can help to track the progress of and speed of the automation and accordingly plan to achieve the goal in time.
• Test Case Design: When the team has decided on the test approach and the tools are finalized, they need to start designing the test cases. The test cases should be concise and decipherable and the tests are prioritized as per the hierarchy based on a component of the software. Team has to take care of the duplication of efforts, for e.g. if the same test is already being covered in Services/API level tests, we shall not repeat the automation of such tests at UI/integration level.
• Execution Plan & reporting: It’s essential to get all your test suites to be integrated with CI/CD and Jira for better execution, planning, visibility, integration and reporting.

It is true that the first stage of setting up the test automation strategy needs much time, effort, research, and resources. However, once everything is set up; test automation is worth the investment and effort as it will provide quicker bug detection to deliver improved and high-quality software.