Automation? Should I bother?

Are you someone who thinks,

• I need to focus on new features now so that I can go to market faster, I will think about test automation later.
• My solution scope is pretty small for now, I can focus on test automation when I have scaled.
• Test automation will take time. The competition is too tight right now. I will focus on it when I have more time

Nodded “yes!” to any of the above, then this article is definitely for you!

There are many reasons out there which talks about if you should or should not focus on test automation. Most talk about whether you value short-term costs or long-term ROI. But here’s the thing, depending on the nature, scope, and context of the solution — automated testing might give more or less value.

If you are unable to decide how much time you should be investing on this topic, here are a few points to help you decide which instances automated testing will give you the highest ROI.

“My product handles a lot of users, or processes a lot of data”

An automated test suite can help you with more features — for example, simulating thousands of virtual users interacting with your web application in order to see how the application behaves. It’s impossible to simulate this kind of behaviour by doing manual testing. Automating features like this save developers a lot of time!

“My product will need regulatory compliance to launch into the market.”

The US and European region have many compliance regulations in place. The level of test automation required for regulatory compliance depends on the exact regulations and standards you need to follow. If your application requires such compliance there is a chance that the regulation requires a certain level of test automation. You would benefit immensely to keep provisions for test automation during your development process even though you might not plan to implement test automation till much later.

“My product runs on a wide range of devices and operating systems”

Web and mobile applications can be viewed on any number browsers, on various devices, and at any size. As there is an overwhelming combination of screen sizes, devices, Operating Systems and browsers to choose from, and usually limited time and resource to test. Automation testing can save the day. Reduce feedback time considerably by distributing tests to multiple test environments, in parallel.

“I am running neck on neck with competitors and I need to go to market fast with new features.”

Newly developed features can be continuously tested and validated with test automation. This reduces the feedback and testing cycle and allows companies to bring their products to the market faster.

“My product is large (or complex) and running on maintenance mode with only a few new enhancements”

When incorporating new features, enhancements or bug fixes, it’s important to verify that the working functionality works as expected. If your product is large and complex, this could be a time consuming activity for your Development Team. Hence having the critical paths automated to ensure that everything works as expected can save you a lot of time and money.