5 Reasons Why Your Automation Project Is Failing

The promise of programs testing other programs has been in the air for the last ten years. Sadly it’s not the holy grail solution we were all hoping it would be, it’s a success in a case by case basis. QA Automation does offer an effective way to test your software, but it’s your project that might not be up for it.

Before you decide to start an automation project, you should ask yourself these questions,

• Which tests should we automate?
• When should we do it?
• Who should create/execute automated tests?
• How should we automate these tests?
• Do I have the right team and tools to do it?

Here’s the five top reasons automation projects fail,

1. You’re Not Testing the Right Thing

You cannot have a successful automation project unless you have a successful manual testing project.In my opinion the principle of a testing project (whether it’s manual or automated) is based on one simple thing: to test the set of things that will allow you to deliver the highest quality software to the client/user. 

If you don’t know what your testing goal is, then you are not ready to start an automation project. There are a lot of projects where they see automation as a way to reduce costs but before thinking about saving time or money, you need to make sure you’re testing the right things.

2. You’re Trying to Automate Everything

A realistic goal is to automate 70-80% of your test; 100% is just a pipe dream. Not all of the test cases can be or need to be automated.

Start with test cases that cover high risk areas.

3. You’re Wasting Too Much Time Automating

Other test cases just take too long to automate between releases. Particularly, areas that change a lot between releases may end up being a waste of time to automate.

4. You Automate and then Forget Automated Tests

A very common mistake in automation projects is that once a test is automated we just keep running them over and over again without doing periodic reviews to check. 

For example, a test may need to be updated because the conditions under the test changed.If you keep running expired tests, you are just wasting time and compromising your product quality. Exactly the opposite of what you wanted to do when you started your project.

5. You’re Treating Automation and Manual Testers as Different Teams

A lot of people believe that manual and automation testers don’t have to work together because their tasks are completely different. This is false. Each complements the other.Yes, they have different skill sets. But they will produce better results if they work together in a unified approach.

Starting an automation project requires high level planning and preparation. Make sure you get the tools and team that will take you to the promised land. The automation test suite development will go through the same life cycle as the product it tests. It never “ends.”

Doing it wrong will be a complete waste of time and resources.