Automation testing has a lot more benefits for improving software application efficiency and service quality. Automation testing consists of applying computational powers to what it does the best and also performing repetitive activities for the software applications. And like all the other technologies, automation and quality assurance also have some risks.
The traditional software development process has evolved from the typical Waterfall method that takes months and sometimes even years to create, assemble, and test a software application. Along the way, software quality assurance has to keep an eye on the entire software development process. While the whole thing gets executed, there are chances of some risks that surely need to be fixed and managed.
In this article, first, you will have a brief look over what quality assurance is, what are the risks in quality assurance, and how you can manage the risks when automation quality assurance.
What is Quality Assurance?
The term Quality Assurance is defined as the process of determining if the software application is sufficiently efficient and featureful to meet the requirements of the clients. Quality assurance is the set of activities that ensure processes, procedures as well and standards are suitable for the project and implemented correctly. The quality assurance process of a software application works parallel to the whole software development process.
The objective of quality assurance is to improve the processes that are executed to develop the software application. There are various benefits of quality assurance such as improving the software quality, usability, portability, error control, etc.
Automation quality is defined as the process of using automated tools and techniques to execute the quality assurance process for a software application. Using automated quality assurance has several benefits over manual quality assurance. These are like it increases the QA time efficiency, there are fewer chances of human error, etc. But after all these benefits there are also some risks when automating quality assurance. Now, let us see what are these risks in automated quality assurance in the given section.
What are the Risks of Automating Quality Assurance?
The risks involved in automated quality assurance are evaluated to suit the software testing requirements of the project. These risks are as follows:
- Underestimating the possible human errors in some specific test scenarios.
- Unrealistic expectations from the chosen automated QA tools.
- Some vendor issues such as not getting technical support and being unable to update the automation testing tools with changes in the software testing platform, etc.
- There are risks of version control and adaptable maintainability of the testing scripts.
- There are risks of compatibility issues of automation testing tools with respect to the testing environment.
How do you Manage Risks When Automating Quality Assurance?
These are some of the best practices that should be followed by the QA team to manage the risks when automating quality assurance.
Identifying the Automation Testing Scope
Identifying the automation testing scope is one of the most important practices that should be followed to execute your automation AQ process. You must decide the tests that you want to automate or not. Because it may be possible that all the tests are not perfect to be automated in the QA process. There are some tests that compulsorily require human involvement to get executed. There are various criteria that can be used in automation to manage the risks in quality assurance testing.
These criteria are test complexity, test frequency, test stability, test priority management, etc. This can be very helpful in managing the risks when you automate quality assurance tests. Analyzing these criteria helps to determine whether a specific test is worth automating or not in quality assurance testing. Also, you can leave the unnecessary tests to be manual for better testing efficiency and outcome. There are also some automation tools available that can be used to determine your automation testing scope. These tools are automation feasibility analysis, automation pyramid, etc.
Choosing the Right Automation Tools
To manage risks when automating the quality assurance process, it is very important to choose the appropriate automation tools. Numerous open-source and paid automated testing technologies are available. When selecting a tool, take into account elements including the application’s technological stack, the team’s experience, and your budget. Selenium, Appium, and TestComplete are a few well-liked automation testing solutions. Selecting the appropriate automation tools demands careful thought.
- Technological Stack: The technological stack of your application has a big impact on the tools you choose. While some automation systems are better suited for desktop software or mobile apps, others specialize in web applications. There can be no compromise on compatibility with your tech stack.
- Team Expertise: Take into account the knowledge and experience of your testing team. It might go more smoothly if they are already familiar with a particular automation tool. On the other hand, consider the learning curve if they must start from scratch.
- Budget: There are many types of automation technologies, ranging from open-source solutions like Selenium to for-profit solutions like TestComplete. Naturally, your pick will be influenced by your budget. Keep in mind that purchasing a dependable instrument can frequently result in long-term cost savings.
Designing Your Automation Testing Framework
After selecting the right automation tool for the quality assurance process, now it’s time to design your automation framework. Designing your automation framework is defined as the set of guidelines, standard rules, and some best practices that a testing team should follow when you create and execute automation tests. While designing the automation framework, keep in mind that the automation framework should be consistent, modular, reusable, maintainable, and also adaptive in nature. These features help to better design the test automation framework and help in managing the risks when automating quality assurance.
While designing an automation framework, it is also important to document your framework design and then train your testing team on how to use it. There are also some tools available that can be used to document your test automation when automation quality assurance. These tools are automation framework templates and automation framework examples. These tools will help the team to design the automation framework and will help to manage the risks when automating quality assurance.
Implement the AutomationTests
After designing the automation testing framework, the quality assurance team needs to implement the automation tests. Implementing your automation tests, means that you need to implement the testing scripts, programs, etc that are needed to perform the testing actions and also to verify the testing results. One of the recommendations while implementing the automation tests is to follow the Test-Driven Development (TDD).
This principle states that the team should write the testing scripts prior to writing the main code. Also, never forget to use the standards and conventions of your automation framework and use the code quality tools. The various code quality tools are linting, formatting, and refactoring. These tools help to ensure that the test scripts are easily readable, reliable and it is robust. All these actions help to manage risks when automating quality assurance.
Monitoring and Reporting Automation Test Results
Monitoring and reporting test results is a very important step that really helps manage the risks when automating quality assurance. The reports include various things such as the test data, the feedback of tests that you collect from the automated testing, etc. There are various tools that can be used to monitor and report your automation results. These tools are dashboards, logs, and alerts that can be used to track the test results and visualize how the automation test is performing.
The various parameters that help to understand the automation testing performance are test coverage, test failures, test defects, etc. There are also some tools that can be used to manage and report the automation results of quality assurance such as reports, charts, graphs, etc that help to communicate all the stakeholders with your automation test results. The stakeholders such as developers, managers, clients, etc can communicate and provide their valuable insights to perform the automation testing with efficiency and also help to manage risks when automating quality assurance.
Create a detailed test report and analysis in order to gain greater insight into the results of your automated tests. Making test reports easily understandable while providing pass/fail status as well as issues discovered during testing is part of this effort. Using these reports effectively will allow you to uncover patterns, trouble spots, and bottlenecks within your testing procedures. Also, the stakeholders can put their effort into improving the test automation process. They can make comparisons, and provide valuable inputs to the test automation process as well as make decisions, take actions, or celebrate achievements.
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Conclusion
Quality Assurance is defined as the process of determining if the software application is sufficiently efficient and featureful to meet the requirements of the clients. It aims to improve the processes that are executed to develop the software application. Automating QA has a lot of advantages but we can not deny that it also has several risks. Managing those risks is a must to do.
The several practices that can be used to manage the risks when automating quality assurance of automation testing are identifying the testing scope, choosing the automation tools wisely, designing the testing framework for QA, etc. All these practices can be followed by the QA team to manage risks when automating quality assurance.
