Moving away from manual testing is something which more organizations are doing at the moment, partly because the tools to achieve this are more attainable than ever, and partly to cope with increased workloads and expectations.
Having the desire to adopt a strategy for automated testing is one thing, but actually implementing it is quite another. To that end, here are some steps to follow to bring your testing up to scratch through automation.
Establish appropriateness
Before plunging ahead with the switch to automated testing, it is necessary to first analyze your needs, scrutinize the test cases you have in place and work out which aspects can be effectively handled via automation, and which may need to remain manual for the time being.
This is also the point at which you can look into the tools which will be used to implement any strategy you embrace. Thankfully, with free automation testing solutions and automation testing services available and the scope of these services growing by the day, you may find that you can justify the feasibility of integrating more automated elements into your broader testing infrastructure than ever before.
Choose a framework
Once you have an idea of what you want to automate, it is sensible to consider the framework on which your strategy will be based.
For example, if you adopt a data-driven approach, you will need to account for how insights gleaned from the information generated during testing can be fed back into the increasingly important development process to pinpoint areas where improvement is needed.
Conversely if you opt for a linear framework, which has set logical steps and is more rigid as a result, this will need to be designed and analyzed as soon as possible so that there are no hold-ups to adoption or unforeseen complications which arise after the fact.
Conquer code
Being able to successfully write and edit code is key to making the most of test automation, so this is a skill you will also need to foster if you want to put a prospective strategy into practice.
The scripts you write to automate aspects of testing not only need to be correctly structured and rigorously composed for optimal performance and consistency, but also need to be thoroughly documented so that they can be interpreted and reused time after time by others, without the need for extensive reverse-engineering or the use of guesswork.
Seek assistance
At the end of the day, you need to appreciate that it is tricky to put a test automation strategy into place without the help and support of others.
For this reason it is worth surrounding yourself with the right team for the job, and also making sure that everyone involved knows what their role is to be and what is expected of them, so that there are no gaps unfilled.
If you take your time, aim to be adaptable and do your research, shifting to test automation should soon begin to pay dividends.
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