Create Your Test Automation Plan First!
“A bad plan is better than no plan, and the most important quality of any plan is the flexibility to change.” — Judson L Moore
What is Test Automation Plan?
Before explaining what a test automation plan is, we should talk about test automation. It is a technique to test a feature and examine the outcomes by using a test automation tool.
Test automation helps testers in many ways.
1- It saves time
When we automate repeated manual tests that we frequently have to run, test automation saves a lot of time for the testers.
2- Improves test coverage
When you automate tests, you cover detailed test cases which you may not run for each test cycle and test scripts cover more than you can do via manual testing with clear results.
3- Increase Ad-Hoc and exploratory testing
When you have a test automation, you run the test automation with no manual effort and use your time for other tests. You can use skilled QA resources in strategic places.
4- Reduce the cost and maintenance
You need to automate the critical and main workflow of the system that changes less and not needs maintenance. So that you will not need to use your resources for maintenance and reduce the cost of resources.
Any test automation needs to be planned first. A test automation plan is a detailed documentation that describes the automation test scope, objectives, goals, estimations, and required resources. An automation test plan can be seen as a sketch of an architecture.
Why is planning test automation essential?
If you have a mission to complete, you always need a plan, good or not. It is better to see where to start and what you will do first.
An automation test plan proves, if the automation is valuable to start and what is the return of investment after completing the automation project. So we can decide to automate or not.
You can prove that the automation project is a need and improves the test process for your managers and teammates, and you can discuss the techniques, technologies, and resources to improve the automation project from the start.
If you have no plan, you may need to re-work because of disorganization, usage of wrong technologies, or resources. A test automation plan helps you to see all from the start.
A test automation plan gives direction to the automation and gives you courage because it is measurable and traceable.
Guideline of an Automation Test Plan
1- Objective
The plan should start with this section that specifies the objective of the test plan document and expectations from the document.
2- Project Overview
This section gives a general overview of the project. It helps stakeholders to understand the automation project better.
3- Assumptions
In this section, we should specify the assumptions while planning the automation. All assumptions should be thought of that might affect the automation and call out in the test automation plan. This section will help you how to take action in any case occurs that disrupts the automation process.
4- Return on Investment
As we mentioned before, we should decide if the case is worth automating or not in the first place. Not everything needs to be automated and the manual test is more useful in some cases. In this section, we should prove to the stakeholders that it is necessary to automate the subject and improve the test process.
We should explain how the automation project will justify the investment if we do the same work manually rather than the automation in the life cycle of the product.
The formula to calculate ROI;
ROI = Lifetime cost saved by automation — [Cost of developing automation + Lifetime cost of maintaining automation] + Lifetime cost of manual effort saved by automation
Lifetime cost saved by automation: All the time spent on the manual test processes for the project that we want the automate in a test cycle. You should assume the item will be tested from top to bottom with all test cases.
Cost of developing automation: All the time spent on the test automation implementation. This amount defines the time for the coding process.
Lifetime cost of maintaining automation: This cost is the time for the maintenance of an automation project. It varies with the complexity of the item and the design of the automation.
Lifetime cost of manual effort saved by automation: If you don’t have a fully automated test process, you may still have manual effort. This amount specifies the time you saved with the automation. If the process is fully automated the amount should be equal to the parameter “Lifetime cost saved by automation”.
You can define occupied time for each criterion with a unit of man hour. Here we aim to obtain a positive return on investment point which means automating the project will help to improve the test process. Stakeholders can decide whether to start the test automation project or not according to ROI calculations. It helps us to see clearly how much automation will be helpful.
5- Automation planning
We should define what to automate and how to plan the automation in this section. You can define the planning under specific subjects.
i. In-scope items/ Out-scope items: You should mention what you will involve in the scope and not. It is not possible to automate all the test processes in most cases. You define what is the scope of your test automation project under this topic.
ii. The type of test automation coverage: You should clarify where you plan to use the test automation in the test cycle of the project. It can be an integration test or regression test etc.
iii. Automation Tools in use per testing layers: If you want to start test automation and plan the automation, you should have an idea of which technologies can be used for this purpose. You should make a search for the technologies, compare and decide which tool is more useful for the test automation layers. You should remember that those tools are only for planning what can be done, and not the final decision. Technologies and techniques can be discussed and improved according to feedback from the team members.
iv. Estimation techniques: You should decide which estimation technique is more proper to use in your test automation project. This can be preferred as the same technique of general project management if compatible with the automation project such as planning poker, T-shirt Size estimation, etc.
6- Automation design
This section defines which design will be used for the test automation project. You should decide on the design of the project according to your needs. For example, if your test automation is a UI automation you may prefer a page object model and there are patterns you can use like the BDD model, singleton model, etc.
7-Automation Execution
In this section, we should define how the automation will be implemented in the project for automation test case creation and execution. You should consider and reply to some questions here.
You should define how will you implement the automation at the project level, what will be your branching strategy, and how will you manage automation code and test cases. You should mention how to manage test data and environment.
8- Planning Defect Management
The aim of the test automation is to increase the quality of the product same as all the test approaches. While doing that we raise defects found and report in the defect management tools. It is necessary to mention how the automation defects are captured and reported, and what will be the defect life cycle in this section.
9- Reporting
Reporting is an important part of testing and you need an approach for reporting the results of test automation. You should define which techniques and tools you will use in this section of test automation planning.
10- Maintainance
Same as all software projects, automation projects also need to be improved or maintained. You should define the maintenance approach here in your test automation plan. In which cases, you will need to work on maintenance for the automation project, what can be improved or what will be the allocated resource for the maintenance purpose should be defined in this chapter.
Finally, you will have a well-organized test automation plan with the above topics included and defined. You may be excited to start the test automation project, but always try to plan it first. When you have a nicely explained plan, you may convince the managers to work on automation and get more investment like resources and time. Furthermore, you will have an estimable process.
