27 December, 2013

Is Automation Testing Working for You?

The right test automation strategy will enable your organization to avail several advantages. In addition to optimizing quality and productivity, the strategy will further cut down the product release time and cost. However, the QA managers must implement the strategy properly to achieve a set of preset goals. At the same time, you need to monitor the test automation process and test results constantly to ensure that strategy is working effectively for your organization.

Six Ways to Make Automation Testing Work for You

1) Evaluate Scope of Automation Testing
automate browser-based tests
You must remember that automation testing fails due to lack of a comprehensive testing plan. In addition to deciding the objectives, you also need to define a clear roadmap to achieve these preset goals. Based on the roadmap, you can decide the manpower, tools and resources required to achieve the objectives. The effectiveness of the test automation plan must be evaluated constantly to determine how far you are from the goals. The evaluation will help you in deciding the changes required to make the process smooth and focused.

2) Identify the Test Cases that can’t be Automated
Often enterprises decide to automate all testing efforts with the intention to get the best out of QA engineers and test automation tools. But you must remember that test automation fails when an organization tries to automate the test cases that are no automatable. The test case must complement the test automation tools. Further a test case can be automated only when accurate and static data are available without requiring manual interaction. So you must evaluate each test case in detail before deciding if it is automatable or not.

3) Check the Test Automation Tools
It is always important to evaluate the pros and cons of various test automation tools before picking those that guarantees success. But you must stay tuned to the latest trends in software automation testing tools and frameworks, while checking the effectiveness of tools selected by you. The new or latest versions of test automation tools come with several additional features and functionality. Therefore, you can always consider replacing or updating these tools to achieve better results.

4) Encourage QA Engineers to Acquire Additional Skills
Like programmers and code writers, QA engineers are also inquisitive in nature. These professionals frequently explore options to acquire new skills. You must encourage the testers to learn how to write code. The coding knowledge will help them in writing better automated test scripts. At the same time, they will also be able to think like code writers, while working with the development team without any hassle. When the QA engineers acquire additional skills, they will achieve the preset goals on schedule.

5) Concentrate on Maintaining the Test Scripts
You can always deploy experienced automated testing professionals to start writing test scripts immediately. But there are always chances that the test scripts will not help you exclusively in achieving your goals. Along with finishing the test scripts on schedule, you must explore ways to maintain these properly. The test script can be maintained easily when it is reusable, standardized and well documented, along with being easy to incorporate changes. The standardization will help junior QA engineers in understanding the requirements, while the senior testers can concentrate on writing and maintaining more complex test scripts.

6) Don’t Keep Manual and Automation Test Engineers Apart:
In comparison to manual testing, automated testing is effective in rapidly covering a great amount of functionality. The automation tools can also be used to verify the functionalities that have not changed. On the other hand, manual testing is essential to verify the new and changed functionality. Further, there are certain functionalities that can be tested only by deploying skilled manual testers. That is why; seamless amalgamation of manual and automated testing efforts is essential to achieve your goals. Both automation and manual test engineers must work together as a single team to enhance both productivity and efficiency.

You can further review and modify the test automation plan periodically to get good quality and high productivity. The functioning of the test automation tools and framework must be monitored and evaluated constantly to make the process more efficient by using the latest software testing suites. When you work with companies certified in providing test automation services, you get all this and more.

Looking forward to automate browser-based tests? Hire automation test engineers from us – We at Mindfire Solutions would be glad to help you achieve your goals within allocated budgets and time schedules.

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