SYSTEM TEST AUTOMATION
12.10 SYSTEM TEST AUTOMATION
It is absolutely necessary for any testing organization to move forward to become more efficient, in particular in the direction of test automation. The reasons for automating test cases are given in Table 12.13. It is important to think about automation as a strategic business activity. A strategic activity requires senior man- agement support; otherwise it will most likely fail due to lack of funding. It should
be aligned with the business mission and goals and a desire to speed up delivery of the system to the market without compromising quality. However, automation is a long-term investment; it is an on-going process. It cannot be achieved overnight; expectation need to be managed to ensure that it is realistically achievable within
a certain time period.
TABLE 12.13 Benefits of Automated Testing 1. Test engineer productivity
2. Coverage of regression testing 3. Reusability of test cases 4. Consistency in testing 5. Test interval reduction 6. Reduced software maintenance cost 7. Increased test effectiveness
392 CHAPTER 12 SYSTEM TEST PLANNING AND AUTOMATION
The organization must assess and address a number of considerations before test automation can proceed. The following prerequisites need to be considered for an assessment of whether or not the organization is ready for test automation:
• The system is stable and its functionalities are well defined. • The test cases to be automated are unambiguous. • The test tools and infrastructure are in place. • The test automation professionals have prior successful experience with
automation. • Adequate budget has been allocated for the procurement of software tools.
The system must be stable enough for automation to be meaningful. If the system is constantly changing or frequently crashing, the maintenance cost of the automated test suite will be rather high to keep the test cases up to date with the system. Test automation will not succeed unless detailed test procedures are in place. It is very difficult to automate a test case which is not well defined to be manually executed. If the tests are executed in an ad hoc manner without developing the test objectives, detailed test procedure, and pass–fail criteria, then they are not ready for automation. If the test cases are designed as discussed in Chapter 11, then automation is likely to be more successful.
The test engineers should have significant programming experience. It is not possible to automate tests without using programming languages, such as Tcl (Tool command language), C, Perl, Python, Java, and Expect. It takes months to learn a programming language. The development of an automation process will fail if the testers do not have the necessary programming skills or are reluctant to develop it. Adding temporary contractors to the test team in order to automate test cases may not work. The contractors may assist in developing test libraries but will not be able to maintain an automated test suite on an on-going basis.
Adequate budget should be available to purchase and maintain new software and hardware tools to be used in test automation. The organization should keep aside funds to train the staff with new software and hardware tools. Skilled profes- sionals with good automation background may need to be added to the test team in order to carry out the test automation project. Therefore, additional head count should be budgeted by the senior executive of the organization.