Factors to Take into Account for Agile Test Automation

Following are the three key factors that should be considered for agile test automation:

1. The development environment should be properly understood: There is a misconception among many application developers that agile application development is a program-centric environment, where the programs are iterated so that the application’s changing requirements can be met. But, application development seeks contributions from various factors such as external devices, databases, backend data, networks etc.

There will be scenarios where the agile team might waste time in understanding the underlying cause of the problem. Hence, it becomes necessary to gain the knowledge pertaining to the development environment that needs to be imparted to the team, so that benefits can be gained from agile test automation.

2. Streamline automation process: In an agile development scenario, it is quite obvious that rapid changes take place and the team works hard in a collaborative manner to complete the project within the stipulated timeframe. There may be instances where the team may miss working on small functionalities, which in turn impacts the quality.

In order to avoid such scenarios, automation testing can be conducted side by side, so that time wastage can be avoided and quality can be maintained in each stage of development.      

3. The right automation tool needs to be identified and implemented: There are a lot of high- performing automation testing tools available in the market. Depending upon the project scope, the right tool or tools can be selected. Following are a few points to consider while selecting the right automation tool:

• Insightful and detailed reports should be one of the key features of the specific tool as they will be of immense help to the testing and development team
  
  
• The tool should be able to perform on different operating systems and platforms
  
  
• The tool should be available under the specific budget set by the management team. However, there will be scenarios where if a specific tool crosses the budget constraints, but, is apt for the project, then that particular tool needs to be selected
  
  
• The tool must have a user-friendly architecture. So, whenever a need arises, any team member should be able to use the tool with a little bit of guidance and support, if need be required. Codeless tools are considered to be an even better option, as it can be used by team members who are technically less proficient to use the tool.