Challenges of Test Automation (Before vs Now)

With automation drastically changing the world, and test automation being its essential subset, it is important to work towards curbing the challenges faced by it and finding solutions that would facilitate in doing so from the very beginning. This blog will walk you through some of the most common challenges faced by the testers and we can help you to overcome those.

Overview of Test Automation

Automation has drastically changed the world, and we are completely surrounded by it. Similarly, the software industry has seen many changes in the past few years as test automation has created a new milestone. Test automation has become an essential subset of the testing industry. Test automation has increased testing coverage and improved software validation. Though test automation has created a buzz in recent years, it has many challenges.

Testers face many unavoidable challenges while using test automation. It is important to find the solutions to those challenges in the beginning. Here are the common challenges a tester might face in test automation:

1. Selection of Tools

Testing teams face challenges as they might not have the expertise in many tools, or in some cases, the tool they are using does not provide complete test coverage. Nowadays, many open-source tools are available to support the different development technologies.

It is important to do extensive research and assessment before selecting the testing automation tool. Find the budget-friendly tool, and analyze the cost vs advantages.

2. Effective communication & collaboration in the team

Test automation requires more communication and team collaboration as compared to manual testing. It is the biggest challenge to keep everyone on the same page when finding the test objectives.

It is important to discuss targets and communicate correctly between the team members. Present historical data and evidence and practice the proof of concept to keep things on track.Ineffective communication and collaboration can surely turn down the test automation process. This will impact the position of the automation team in front of higher management.

3. Professional & Skilled Resources

People believe that manual testers can handle the test automation, and general testers can support the internal process like recording test scripts or playing. However, it is a myth; in fact, manual testers need a set of skills to design and maintain the framework of test automation accurately.

It is mandatory to hire a skilled and trained resource for test automation. Else it will be a big challenge in the later stages of the work. Look for a programming background and expertise in automation tools.

4. Right Testing Approach

The right approach is also required in test automation other than the right tool. Keeping the right testing approach is the biggest challenge for test automation. Before you decide on the approach, answer a few questions like how to maintain the test scripts and test suites, how long the test automation suite will work, or many other basic questions.

Agile development has been adopted in the development process, and product changes under the development cycles. Hence identifying the changes will help to reduce the overall maintenance efforts.

Conclusion

Despite the challenges mentioned above, test automation comes with high upfront costs and data dependency issues. Setting realistic expectations for test automation is also important; if you have unrealistic expectations, it will delay the development and can cause damage to the product.

Sometimes, you might get scaling issues or oversight problems in automated test scripts. If there is a scaling issue in the testing, it will skip the bugs, and errors will occur within the development cycle or production.

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