Thursday, April 7, 2016

Starting a new automation testing project

Initiating test automation on your project may seem challenging, or even overwhelming and this is not going to be an cake walk for sure.
I have been part of automation for legacy projects and delivered my best without much pain. But when it comes to start a new automation project , it required brain storming , home work  starting from presenting the benefit to management, convincing them for adopting tools, resources ect.
I am considering two scenarios here
1-      You are part of any product base company or any startup and you are owner of QA activities and you want to start with automation.
2-      You are part of large projects (mainly legacy systems, or applications) where various factors comes in way to go for any automation implementation.
I would rather cover the first scenario also considering we have to setup a team as well. That means there is no automation till now and you are going to start with a new team.
Your work starts with the below questions and finding out the answers:
  • Have you done initial level of feasibility study to adopt the automation. This may include how we are going to be benefited.  Do we have work which can be automated and fruitful doing so. Make a detail plan and present to management.
  • Have you identified the automation tool. If that is open sources, language you need and do you  the skills and funding for same? If that is paid, how you will get license, what type of licensing is there, what about support conditions ect.
  • Once you have selected the tool, think about do you have skilled resources or you need trainings for them. If yes, how all those things will go. Make a Plan for this clearly.
Overall, it takes a champion, an advocate, to get automation up and running on a project, but the  payoff can be worthwhile.
Once you are done with above things, next step would be to start planning. Brainstorm with your team and plan a flexible framework. Think modular. Create and use naming conventions. Plan for code and function re-use.

this is not end but this article give you starting idea about how to approach toward starting the automation in your project.

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