Quality assurance goes in hand with any software development project. It discovers code bugs and defects prior to the release guarding the user experience. To put it short, the main aim of software testing is to achieve the success of your digital solution.
No surprise that with technological advance, automation trends are expanding in the QA field. It helps to save time for your software testers as while the testing script is running, they can take care of other initiatives, the testing scripts unlike humans are never tired to miss some critical points, and last but not least you can get the results faster to either fix them or move forward with the development.
Sometimes it may happen that implementing automation on a project has an opposite effect, and instead of benefits, it brings more problems.
Here are the top mistakes in adopting automation:
Getting your team onboard
Adopting automation testing strategy is not an easy task. It’s nearly impossible to do it right if your team isn’t on the same page.
Solution: Before embarking on the journey to evaluate tools or build your own framework, make sure to check in with your team. Assess the current makeup of your resources for everyone’s strengths and weaknesses. You may have a few automation engineers who know how to code. You probably have even more testers who are subject matter experts on your application or business domain. Maximize your team productivity by finding a future process that allows everyone to contribute efficiently.
Wrong place to start
When you are just at the beginning of an automation project the temptation to start from complex tasks, and due to the lack of experience for your team, there’s a risk to play havoc with the whole process, and stuck on one component longer than it was initially estimated.
Solution: Start from small routine tasks like testing input/output of the registration forms, then move to simulate the order flow, and proceed with some large-scale testing procedures like regression or stress testing.
Selecting wrong automation tools
The choice of automation testing tools defines the success of implementation, and if they do perform their functions correctly, the project is doomed to fail. At the early stage of adoption with a limited budget, it’s common to use open-source testing tools just because they are free without proper investigation. It’s not about licensed or open-source (as it may happen with licensed software as well) but rather about covering all the use case scenarios.
Solution:
Gather the list of requirements for a testing tool starting from compatibility with your technology stack to the test types it should support, try out 2-3 alternatives for your team to assess the functionality and gather feedback. Choosing open-source, make sure to check whether it has support options or a developed community that can offer some advice. With paid software, make sure to check whether you can get a trial or demo version to see how it works. When you choose options like Testrigor, you’re going to be able to make automation testing much easier and far more streamlined. Selecting the wrong automation tools is a problem for your business, but the solution is in ensuring that you choose the right automation options to make your software testing easier.
Trying to automate everything
It’s a popular misconception that once you start automation the end goal is to automate everything. In fact, not every test needs to be automated. Exploratory testing or UX elements require manual assistance, as well as test cases that do not have a yes/any output, as they will be much harder to maintain than going with a manual solution.
Solution: Do not aim to automate all test processes, make the audit of the testing procedures in place to see what tests need to stay manual and what can be automated. Then, from the tests that can be automated, assess their frequency to set up the priority. If a test runs once per quarter or year, the investments in automation may be not justified.
Insufficient training
Every time adopting new technologies is not easy, and automation testing is not an exception. Without proper training and getting used to a new tool, there will be more errors and the positive results will come slower.
Solution: Develop an onboarding program on the basis of new testing tool documentation involving specialists or discuss a free training option with a software vendor. Thus, you will be able to see faster results.
This list of the most common mistakes can help you to better plan the adoption strategy and get the most from it. It’s worth noting that automation is not a one-day process, so careful planning and patience are keys to success.
