Automation is a key player in delivering quality software in today’s fast-paced software development environment. A decision to kick-off automation in a software development team starts usually with a choice of tool and eventually the business process starts to fit into the tool instead of vice-versa. Join me to learn my perspective and a successful automation journey that starts off discussing robust Automation frameworks, Automation considerations, and maintainable design, where tools are one element in this overall arena.
Effective Automation development strategies incorporate risk-mitigation principles in their onset. The design starts by focusing on what truly is a “regression set” and what is highly critical for a business function. The manual testing costs are compared with those of automation development and maintenance and at the same time, the teams need to prioritize what and where should the manual testing be focused on, could there be some easy-wins and low-hanging fruit? The development stage should be the stage where a minimum comparable amount of time is spent since this is the “tool” part. This does not negate the fact that effective and maintainable development principles like reusable coding elements, effective and realistic wait times; easy test data update approach, etc. should be incorporated.
The stage of automation, which I am usually most, concerned with and focused on is maintenance and support. If the automation is reused iteratively and with the least amount of cost then the goals of automation are achieved, otherwise, automation just becomes a burden and eventually loses all the ROI.