Strategy and planning are fundamental building blocks of implementing mature testing practices. To achieve high-quality software within a short time is one of the objectives of every software, while fulfilling business expectations and customer satisfaction with no defects is the main aim of testing.
In any of the software testing, strategy test automation strategy is always a decision-making point. The following are few key elements that one has to focus on is building a cost-effective automation testing strategy with a result-oriented approach.
- Perform an assessment on your current posture of qualityWhile we are always eager to implement new and bring a change factor, it’s always important to know the current state, below would be few key steps to take as part of assessing your quality posture.
- Assess your current State and Get Recommendations.
- Choose Testing Advisory and Consultants to perform Need Analysis for implementing automation.
- Get the Assessment done on your current challenges and fix the gaps.
- Based on Recommendations across people, process and tools and your priorities define your Goals
- Setting up GoalsOnce we are sure about our challenges and have recommendations report that we need to fix, get them prioritized and implement, and once they are implemented, define your goals of test automation. Below are few sample goals for why Test automation should be implemented.
- I have multiple applications which need to be validated across multiple devices and environments, so I need automation to help me to execute more testing cycles in less time.
- Automation should help me to find defects faster so that I can get them fixed early.
- Automation should help my team should focus on business logic and improving my product, rather than regression testing and finding defects.
- Agility to execute my tests 24X7.
- Automatic trigger of tests on builds deployment.
- Precision of validation and reduce redundancy.
- To reduce manual intervention.
- Choose your Right ToolsBy this time, we have our goals identified and decided to move forward, and here comes a challenge in choosing the right automation tool which is a key enabler to reach your goals defined, few are the few aspects which you should while you are making a decision on the automation tool.
- Easy onboarding which will help QA teams to start automating from day one we start using the tool.
- Low learning curve where a lot of training or skills are NOT needed.
- Promotes higher interoperability which gives the flexibility of automation across different testing devices.
- Support for integration with external tools to promote collaboration between tools across the SDLC ecosystem.
- Rich Insights with reports and notifications which gives your team actionable insights.
- Cost of Automation and ROI.
- Implement and monitor a pilot with few selected Use CasesYes, we have nailed down with best automation tool which serves our purpose but wait, it’s not over. We need to now make sure we are checking if the tool we selected is going to benefit us, so identify the smaller portion of your applications and test the waters before you make a decision to apply to larger modules.
- Scale and automate your applications:Once we have the pilot successful, take your learning, adjust your methodologies, approaches and scale the automation to larger modules.
- Learn and Refine:While automation is in place, have regular reviews to make sure we are achieving our goals and we are on track to reach ROI, if not refine and make sure you are right on track again!.
Test automation is not a solution for every problem you have in software testing.