Many companies struggle with the decision of when to add automation to their software development testing cycle. More often than not, the choice to fully automate the testing process involves a triggering event, like rapidly scaling, workforce restructuring, or productivity issues.
However, you don’t need to experience a cataclysmic event to decide if automation is right for your business. Here are six ways to know you are in an excellent position to automate.
6 Signs You’re Ready for Automation
All software development teams should automate their testing process, but not everyone sees it that way. By moving through the following checkpoints, you’ll see if you’re ready for automation.
1. You Know Why You Want to Automate
There are several good reasons why companies want to add an automated testing platform to their dev cycle, but that doesn’t mean you should. To benefit from the growth, efficiency, and productivity automation brings, you first need to know why you specifically need it.
Do you want to save time? Free up your testers for other jobs? Achieve a better ROI? The possibilities are endless, but having an idea of what’s important to you can guide your approach.
2. You Have a Clear Picture of your Process
Business owners are likely familiar with their inputs and outputs, but do they know what steps led to your team achieving these metrics? What processes power your business? Knowing your development team’s workflow will give you an idea of why they need automation software.
At the same time, you have to know where automation will make the most impact. If your team struggles with cross-browser testing, you should know how and why automation can help.
3. Your Processes are Fully Formed
Automation won’t magically turn chaos into order. It’s designed to improve your accuracy, speed, and test coverage. If you don’t have a fully formed process, you’ll still need to get your testing suite up to speed before you start simplifying it. There’s no automatic “win” button.
If you’re in the process of figuring out how you want to test, it’s better to iterate on these points until you’re stable. Get to a point where you’re OK with testing one way over and over again.
4. You Have Automatable Processes
Most, if not all, software development teams will have processes that benefit from automation. As a rule, anything that must be performed consistently and doesn’t need direct human judgment requires automation. Unit, integration, and functional testing are easy to automate.
No automation software will offer a fully hands-off experience. You’ll still need manual testing to complete specific tasks, but you shouldn’t have to manually test every single piece of code.
5. Your Processes Are Worth Automating
Like the last question, this is pretty easy to answer for development teams. Automated testing leads to 20-40x cycle time improvement and saves 90% of overhead associated with updates or changes. These numbers are so high because just about everything is worth automating.
One thing development teams shouldn’t use automation for is usability testing. Manual tests can specifically examine how someone interacts with a feature or explores the platform.
6. Your Team Embraces Automation
While change is an easier pill to swallow in any IT profession, automation still makes people nervous. There’s a fear that automation will take their job or be too complicated to run. You can do a lot to calm these fears by speaking to your staff about the benefits of automation.
Even with the uncertainty of change, the positives can outweigh the negatives. Explain to your team how automation software can help cut through the tedium and quicken the dev process.
Make sure you train your staff so they don’t feel overwhelmed or frustrated with your program.
Also Read: The Top Reasons To Choose Custom Software Development For Your Business Website
