How to Make Agile Test Automation Successful?

We all understand the criticality of agile test automation. Likewise, it is even more essential in bigger companies. However, the problem lies in that fact that it doesn't always work. In my experience, here are a few reasons why agile test automation fails to work in large organizations:

1. Poor Collaboration: Most large-scale IT development companies depend on large, diverse teams of specialists for product development. These teams often are assembled quickly and work together virtually, many-a-times over long distances, thereby restricting collaboration to online interactions.
2. Reliability is a Concern: Asynchronous waits and concurrency often cause flaky test scripts. These are a huge hindrance to Test Automation.
3. Maintenance Issues due to Scope creep: Existing automation suite might consume a lot of time for maintenance since Agile permits scope creep.
4. Presence of Specialized Skills: In large companies, most employees possess specialized skill-sets. Although this is a boon, it also has its drawback, especially while implementing Test Automation. For example, a skilled automation engineer will focus only on the programming aspects and not the functional ones and will lack domain knowledge.
5. In-sprint automation is Only a Dream: As much as we’d like it to be, automation doesn’t get implemented in the same sprint.

How to Roll Out Agile Test Automation Successfully?

1.  Adopt CI/CD: By adopting Continuous Integration/ Continuous Delivery, you can get benefits of collaboration and cross-functioning from the same team. This in turn, significantly improves the speed and software delivery process. Since CI/CD encourages shared working, wherein development, integration, and testing take place in real-time, it makes the entire agile cycle more effective.

2. Choose the Right Automation Tool: And most importantly, select the right test automation tool. Features to ensure the success of the test automation in an agile environment include:

1.      It should follow shift-left principle for application delivery. Start automation early in the game, when the requirements are being written
2.      It should be OS and Browser friendly. The larger the number of operating systems and browsers it supports, the better it is for teams to perform testing.
3.      It should meet end-to-end testing requirements.
4.      It should be script-less, since productivity increases when no programming language is required.
5.      It should provide integration support with cross-functional tools like continuous integrations, test management tools, bug tracking tools, etc.
6.       The tool should be user-friendly and intuitive. The navigation, functionality, and UI should be easy-to-understand.
7.       It should be robust and produce quick results so that testers can promptly respond to the test results.
   
   

If implemented appropriately, agile test automation can yield a lot of benefits. However, it is vital to have a proper automated testing strategy to understand and decide what tasks are worth automating. Tasks that are performed once in a way out shouldn’t be automated as the effort required to automate them generally doesn’t pay off. If you’re thinking of adopting agile test automation, the script-less software testing tool by Qualitia is the one-stop solution for all your needs. Its script-less approach allows you to leverage your existing team by empowering even manual testers and subject matter experts to participate in the process of test automation.