Software Test Automation: Problems and Tips

January 04 07:37 2017 by Nataliia Vasylyna Print This Article

Frequently, QA teams are in a fix when it comes to automation. It is required many skills, effort, and experience in order to thorough know when to implement automated tests.

Each test leader should be able to adopt test automation in a general test plan and smartly execute this procedure without spoiling everything. What challenges may automation be accompanied with? What misunderstandings are there in the IT circles?

3 problems of automation implementation:

Only key test scenarios should be automated – unfortunately, this principle does not always work the way it should. Much time may be spent on understanding test artifacts and then writing and running test cases.
All tests should be automated – software testing company does not possess a full set of tools, required to check each system segment. Thus, usability testing or functional testing may be not successful in the end.
Automate just because everyone does this – the worst thing could happen to the test team is to waste time thinking about should or should not automation be implemented. The place of automation should be defined when writing test documentation.

The above-mentioned challenges may take place in each software company, even in those organizations which practice agile testing.

Tips for test automation engineer:

think about automation as a component part of the test process, not the additional one;
define the test case which should be automated and equip it with the proper tool;
perform smoke testing on each build;
set realistic goal and follow it.