Selecting the scenarios
First of all what is critical to the business and gets tested most often.
We automate not everything but what repeats often and has settled down. Chasing full coverage costs more than the benefit it brings.
First of all what is critical to the business and gets tested most often.
The tests are made resilient to cosmetic interface changes, otherwise maintenance eats the entire benefit.
They are prepared and cleaned up so the runs do not affect one another.
The tests run automatically on every build rather than when somebody remembers them.
A clear result showing the step at which it failed, with a screenshot.
Updating the tests as the product changes. That is continuous work rather than a one-off project.
The first tests appear in two or three weeks; the noticeable effect comes once the main paths are covered.
We count how much time the manual regression run takes today. From that you can see whether automation will pay off.
The execution infrastructure, test data preparation, the reporting system.
We write the tests in turn, starting with whatever breaking would be most visible.
We update them as things change and deal with flaky tests.
A flaky test is worse than no test. When a test fails again and again for no real reason the team stops reading the results, and genuine breakages get ignored along with the noise. Such tests are either fixed at once or deleted without regret.
No. Automated tests run what has already been described quickly and tirelessly. Only a person can find an unknown problem in a new scenario. Automation removes the routine, not the people.
With infrequent releases, a rapidly changing interface and prototypes. If the product is redrawn every month the tests will have to be rewritten faster than they can pay off.
Sensible coverage rather than maximum. Usually the paths that bring in money and the places where defects have already occurred are enough. Chasing a coverage percentage produces tests for the sake of tests.
Tell us how often you release and how long the manual run takes. We will work out whether automation pays.
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