Prerequisites for Test Automation

Before you decide to spend a large amount of money on test automation, a few things must be in place. In the absence of these things, your test automation efforts will most likely fail.

Stable Test Environments

If your test environment is unstable, forget it! Your test automation scripts are most likely to give you different results, which will make it difficult for you to identify the real problem. Testing and test automation are basically useless in an unstable environment. Despite the fact that it might be difficult to have a highly stable environment, your test environment must be stable.

Good Testing Practices

Good testing practices are essential for the success of test automation. A test automation script is only as good as the test case (or test scenario). If the manual test case is poorly designed and not testing the application effectively, then your automation script will not provide any advantages. Good testing practices are very important to reap the full benefits of test automation.

Identify What Needs to be Automated

Not everything can be automated and not everything should be automated right away. It is very important to identify the items that need to be automated and also which ones should be automated first. For example, I would recommend test automation for a stable API that is important to the company. Also, it must be noted that certain things are better tested manually.

Clear Test Automation Expectations

It is very important to know what you want from automation. It is also important to communicate the goals of test automation to stakeholders and upper management. Set up a few time-boxed goals and expectations for your automation initiatives and continuously monitor your progress.

Dedicated Test Automation Engineer

Once you have addressed the above points, it will be time to get a dedicated Test Automation Engineer. A good Test Automation Engineer has to know how to test and how to develop automation scripts. It is very important that your Test Automation Engineer is dedicated to tests and test automation.