Are you thinking about transitioning from manual to automated testing and would like to give it a try – If not completely, at least to have a minimum level of getting some insight into the method? If this is true then you are in the right way.
You would have been tired of testing (it happens most of the time). There is also a chance of missing bugs at times which customers will find. This would have created dull time in your application. Hopefully it didn’t impact much.
Regardless of the reason, would you like to enhance the test coverage at a scale – Test Automation can get you there.
It’s certain that you know about Test Automation and also how the organisation is benefited with the properly automated tests –
- Faster, less-tedious testing
- Improved efficiency
- Better coverage
- Fewer bugs
This in turn results in better customer experience.
First, we will see the critical limitations of going with Automated Testing
- Manual testing will never fade
- Automation cannot automate everything
There will always be a need for manual testers with awareness, responsiveness, and product understanding that cannot be automated or stuffed into an algorithm. Automated testing cannot work as same as manual testing in all cases. Possibly, it will complement and enhance it. There will ALWAYS be some testing activities, like Exploratory Testing, which can be handled only with human mind.
The longer an organisation postpones the transition, the harder it’s to catch up with competitors. Automated testing is an important step to release the application faster with minimal bugs. This is often particularly true amid an age, when technology has exploded the variability of devices, browsers, and versions that customers use.
Whether you’re a small team of developers as a Startup or a serious Organisation with devoted testing teams and budgets, the way to testing automation isn’t simple without any obstacles. Transforming a manual testing towards an automated one takes time and effort.
How does one do this well?
The way to shift from Manual to Automated Testing
1. Get Buy-In & Change Minds
You clearly understand the importance of test automation and how it is good for the process and you don’t want to ignore it. On the other hand, you see that others are not convinced yet.
To start out getting buy-in, you have to reframe your thinking and enter the perspectives of everyone involved — from management to practitioners.
What does ROI(Return On Investment) appear as if to every of your stakeholders? Make it real.
For management, the ROI are often best framed in terms of cost savings, product quality, and risk mitigation. What quantity of time are you able to save? How much better is that the coverage?
Take a high priority page. What’s the value of downtime if a new feature release breaks something you didn’t even know you ought to have tested? For the daily practitioners, help them understand that the inconvenience is temporary, that they’re going to be ready to take the repetitive and boring tasks out of their day, and that having experience with test automation will only bring more career changes.
Test automation means faster release rate which means more worth for customers. Those customers will face fewer confusion from bugs, human errors, or missed defects because automation testing also gives you good quality coverage across your development lifecycle. That coverage is increased, in part, by the very fact that automation helps you test in ways in which manual testing cannot, like performance testing, sophisticated scenarios, and API test automation.
2. Plan on What to Automate & Who Will do it
Any new process comes with a learning curve. For the teams just starting with automation, there’s a broad range of things to wrap their minds around: from figuring out which tests to automate to deciding who will do the automation.
Does one have the resources and skills you need? Is there an existing testing team? Does one have the budget to rent an SDET to assist code changes? Or does one have to move further with an existing team of manual testers? All are important inquiries to answer.
3. Explore Frameworks
The place to begin for choosing frameworks, of course, is narrowed down by what you’re testing. For mobile testing, there are Appium, Quantum, and others (like Espresso). For web testing, there are Selenium and others. In addition to the list, there is up-and-coming frameworks, like Cypress and Flutter.
Each has its strengths and weaknesses. Selenium, for instance , is extremely flexible and open sourced but also contains a reputation for being flaky. Test maintenance is often a problem.
A conflict for your team regarding frameworks is it will source major issues down the road so choose it wisely.
4. Pick Tools
For those entering the world of test automation, getting the tooling right is important. There are many sorts of tools, from legacy and soon-to-be-obsolete record and playback tools all thanks to codeless test automation tools using AI to Strong testing tools that provide device labs and reporting.
Just like frameworks, it’s important to select something that serves your purpose. Not only today, but within the near and distant future. Will the tool be around in five years? Are they releasing frequently? How about support?
Ultimately, tooling must address your challenges, serve your strengths, and integrate together with your current and future needs.
5. Start Small, Fail Small, Learn Fast
The ray of full-on test automation is bright. But don’t be blinded by planning too much on timely basis. Starting small may be a best practice for nearly any and each business initiative. It holds very true for test automation.
Give yourself small goals. Automate a single test case (usually one that’s repetitive process). Compute kinks in your process, then bring that wisdom into more test cases.
It’s easier to replicate and scale small successes than to separate exactly what broke amid the infinite variables and dependencies.
6. Strive for Continuous Clarity
The name of the automation game is collaboration.
Manual testers got to be working closely with coders (or SDETs if you’ve got them) to make your automation efforts. There should be continuous clarity around what’s being tested, how, and what the results should be. Shift-left testing has become popular for a reason: It shortens the gap between development and testing. If done right, test automation achieves an equivalent end. But you would like fast feedback loops among everyone involved to deliver better automation.
Keep talking throughout the method . If you’re not over-communicating, you’re under- communicating.
7. Start Automation Work Now, Next Quarter, Next Year
Goals give us direction. In test automation, be upfront about what you’re planning to achieve.
What does success appear as if within the short-term? Which may be as simple as automating a first test case. Or executing X number of tests.
By the top of the quarter, maybe that goal is tied more to finding more bugs or having fewer escaped defects.
From there, how much faster are you able to be releasing? Because that’s really the goal, isn’t it?
Bottom Line
Test automation delivers benefits across the organisation. But you’ll only experience them if you really start automating.
So Let’s encourage Automation testing and enjoy the benefits!
Gayathri M,
Testing Team,
Mallow Technologies.