Five common errors that organizations may make while building a test automation framework
Developing a test automation framework is not a cakewalk. It involves extensive planning, analysis, and development. There are several requirements for a project, and the same must be calculated at the planning stage and verified as the essential ones through a thorough analysis. You must have a clear objective of what you are trying to build and if a similar automation framework is already available in the market.
You must have the right solutions to help you provide your resources so they can use them to develop the most robust test automation framework. You must make a considerable investment and calculate the ROI to understand if the entire effort is worth so much money, time, and effort. An organization must also be prepared for internal changes before implementing test automation to ensure that these changes do not affect the implementation project.
Let us consider that you have a plan to design and implement a test automation framework, but does it confirm the success? You have money, time, and adequate resources, but some of the implementations of the test automation framework still fail. So, what are the reasons that the implementation project fails? There are five errors that organizations make while implementing the test automation framework.
- Lack of understanding of the QA goals
One of the errors that organizations may make is designing a test automation framework without understanding the QA goals and expectations. Since the design of the test automation framework is based on what the organizations would like to achieve, they must design the test automation framework with an overall focus on the QA goals. Understanding the QA goals is part of the planning process hence, it must be planned at the initial stage.
- Lack of understanding of customer expectations
Inability to understand your customer’s expectations can be another error organizations might make while building a test automation framework. Some users may have profound technical skills and knowledge compared to others. The skilled users would expect more control to experiment with the details of technical designs, while the users with limited technical knowledge would like to see simple designs. The skilled users can easily handle the complex back-end processes compared to some users with less knowledge and skill and would prefer to stick around with simple front-end processes.
- Inadequate knowledge of Application under Test
It is essential to learn about the application under test (AUT) before designing the framework. Based on the nature of the application, the team determines the layout of the framework. However, not all companies will explore applications under test before designing or planning the test automation framework. There are a few critical aspects the technical team must follow to ensure that they do not miss out on the details of AUT in the designing phase. A framework can be designed to integrate multiple applications written in a single script. Also, the team open multiple browsers to validate the application performance & functionalities across different browsers.
- Selecting resources with inadequate skill and knowledge
There may be many skilled resources, but not all might possess the knowledge to build a successful test automation framework. Organizations must choose the right resources with adequate knowledge, expertise, and experience to design and develop the test automation framework that meets the goals. The test automation framework must be robust, flexible, and scalable with ease of maintenance. Suppose the organization decides to outsource the project, the organization must segregate the team who would build and maintain the test automation framework project. Choosing the wrong resources can be detrimental to a project.
- Failing to track, review and report progress
One of the errors that organizations make is failing to track, review, and report the project progress. It is challenging to review the initiated process during its development phase, but if the process remains unreviewed, it will not give an accurate idea about its progress. It is crucial to understand if the project meets the expectations. The key to building a successful test automation framework is to ensure the process is flexible and easily monitored.
Conclusion
The organizations may have everything to build the right test automation framework. However, a minor error can cause massive loss to the project. Therefore, if organizations decide to keep the project in-house, they must ensure not to make the errors maintained above.