Is Test Automation Necessary?

The result is software teams now must engineer innovative solutions to be even more efficient with the limited time allocated before a release.

But it is necessary?  Quite simply YES! 

Automation, in any field, delivers increased productivity and reduced costs. In software development, automation has become an integral part of testing.

Here are 5 major reasons why automation is crucial and necessary in today’s global world of testing:

   1. Saving Time and Ensuring Quality: 

The foremost factors that necessitates automation in any testing is the short development cycle. Gone are those days where project implementation used to run for years. If all testing were to be done manually, the time required would surpass the actual development time therefore cost prohibitive. Alternatively, testing would have to be hurried and reliant on humans not to make error, thus compromising on quality.

  2. Frequent Changes and hence Quicker Feedback Loops: 

We all know that software projects do not work with a complete set of requirements.  The requirements develop with time and often change depending on customer priorities, market trends and end-user needs. While the world of IT is moving towards Agile due to its quick adaptability to change, it also implies testing should be agile enough to meet the changes. Automation brings in necessary agility to testing and helps it to respond faster and more effectively to changes.

  3. Continuous Testing to Improve Test Coverage: 

Test Cycles and continuous builds demands early and continuous testing. Test coverage extends to not only the newly added code but also the code from previous builds/iterations. This ensures that previous functionality is not broken with the new additions. This, in turn, puts an additional pressure on testers. Automating some of the testing means alleviates this constraint, allowing more time for exploratory testing. Automation testing is not only for executing test scripts against the code change but also to automate other testing activities like data set up.

  4. Get Quick Visibility into Code Quality: 

Automation testing allows code testing to occur rapidly with a standard suite of test scripts. This gives the tester and developer a quick peek into the code quality and they have more time to react in case the code does not fulfill expectations.

5. Exhaustive Testing:

With automation, testing can be repeated as many times allowing detailed and exhaustive examination of the code. This ensures code quality when working in a limited testing window. Repetitive test execution cycles also assist in achieving the ROI of test automation.

 Author: Sandeep Kini, Test Automation Manager