- Introducing Automated Testing to an Organization
- Test Process Analysis
- Process Review
- Safeguarding the Integrity of the Automated Test Process
- Considering the Use of a Test Tool on a Particular Project
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Safeguarding the Integrity of the Automated Test Process
To safeguard the integrity of the automated test process, the test team needs to exercise new releases of an automated test tool in an isolated environment; the team can then validate that the tool performs to product specifications and marketing claims. The test team should verify that the upgrades would run in the organization's current environment; although earlier versions of the tool may have performed correctly and a new upgrade may perform well in other environments, the upgrade might adversely affect the team's particular environment. Using a configuration-management tool to baseline the test repository can also help to safeguard the integrity of the automated test process.
Although process definition, metrics gathering, and process-improvement activities can be expensive and time-consuming, the good news is that creating and documenting standards and procedures for an automated test program is no more expensive than the same activity for a manual test program. In fact, use of an automated test tool with scripting, test identification, and automatic documentation capabilities can reduce costs by providing some of the framework and content required.