Nowadays everyone wants to accomplish their task as soon as possible and they have discovered automation tools, which can complete these tasks with less efforts and cost. This holds true in today’s Software/IT world as well. Every client and team wants to delivery their product quickly and they are heavily relying on automation tools to help. Automation of development activities like code reviews, builds, and version control has been in existent for quite a long time however automation of test activities is gaining more momentum. There are various tools available in the market for testing applications for different types of test such as Load, Functional, and Security etc. however Functional automation is most widely used by organizations.
More and more people are learning test automation tools since they feel that it’s the future. There are various sources through which you can learn how to automate, however it takes time to be seasoned in automation. To be an expert, one should have knowledge about the common automation mistakes that are made and have a plan to avoid these mistakes.
Based on my automation experience and exposure on multiple projects here are some common mistakes that should be avoided when starting an automation project:
- Not gathering complete requirements and expectations from an automation perspective before starting tool feasibility and selection
- Beginning automation without performing a feasibility study of the application
- Selecting the incorrect tool and resource
- Choosing a scripting language that the automation engineer is not comfortable using
- Trying to automate the entire application
- Automating unstable functionality or application
- Executing scripts on regular basis is not being done
- Lack of Continuous Integration with other tools
- Creating false expectations with the client that automation can speed up test execution by X % or they can achieve 100% test coverage by engaging test automation tools
- Developing scripts without having an automation framework in place
- Hard coding objects, values and data within the scripts
- Insufficient test reporting which doesn’t identify or analyze the root cause of failures
- Peer reviews are not being conducted of the scripts/functions/methods/objects/data
- Data which can give ROI of the automation work is not being collected
About the author
An agile and customer focused professional, Vikas has been Pyramid Consulting's Director of Quality Assurance since 2009. Vikas manages a team of 90+ QA professionals and leads our QA Center of Excellence.