10 ways to Avoid Pitfalls in Test Automation: CloudQA's Personal Take

Technologically, every step you take is forward. We live in a tech-driven world, lathered up by the endless possibilities all the time. Luckily for us, you hardly see anyone sitting doing manual testing labor for hours and repeating it until you get it right. 

Automated testing is everywhere. We hear about it constantly being the top of the trends. It has significantly changed and improved performing software testing, with fast execution. With over ten years of experience at CloudQA, we’ve seen it all—from startups dipping their toes into test automation to seasoned enterprises looking for a full-scale transformation. And, just like every testing enthusiast would advise, there are some challenges you can look out for.This article is packed with some of the major pitfalls with the ways to avoid it. 

Make sure you read till last, to read our additional takeaways.

Common Pitfalls in Test Automation:

Unclear Goals 

Pitfall: unclear goals can lead to wasted effort on unnecessary tests, misaligned priorities, and failure to meet key project objectives.

Ways to Avoid: Define objectives that ensure that the testing goals align with overall business needs, by involving stakeholder or team members to give a fresher perspective and, clarify expectations with desired outcomes. Set standard metrics to track the success of automation tasks. 

Poor Test Plannings

Pitfall: Inadequate test planning leads to missed scenarios, inefficient test execution, and gaps in test coverage, ultimately reducing the effectiveness of automation efforts.

Ways to Avoid: A comprehensive plan would be a good start. Run it through every team member and build a test strategy based on risk and impact, to highly ensure every A-B point is covered.

Choosing the wrong tools

Pitfall: It can lead to serious compatibility issues, wasted time, and limited testing efficiency, and hurt your wallet. 

Ways to Avoid: Familiarize yourself with all the present tools. List down the tasks and requirements. Choose tools on the basis of its ease of use, your team’s skill set, and integration capabilities. Look for DIY sessions for the tools you choose to opt for.

Poorly Designed Test Cases

Pitfall: Test cases which are poorly designed can lead to incomplete testing, compromised results, bugs and complex maintenance. 

Ways to Avoid: Study every test case, with their usability, durability and ease to navigate. Don’t hesitate to use and deploy a test case in a way it can be reused. 

Look at how CloudQA does it here.

Overlooking maintenance

Pitfall: Automation health is highly overlooked. It leads to outdated, unreliable tests that fail to adapt to changes in the application, resulting in false positives or missed defects.

Ways to Avoid: Regularly review and update test scripts as the application evolves. Deploy continuous testing so that you always stay up-to-date, ensure new features and updates. Allocate dedicated time in the development cycle for refactoring and maintaining tests to ensure long-term reliability and accuracy.

No Continuous Integration

Pitfall: Without continuous integration, tests are run infrequently, leading to delayed detection of issues and increased risk of integrating faulty code. Leaves all the processes out-of-sync. 

Ways to Avoid: It’s essential to set up an automated CI pipeline where tests are executed after every code change. This ensures that issues are caught early and frequently, allowing teams to address defects before they accumulate. As we have already discussed the importance of right tools, look for such to support easy integration with version control systems and build servers.

No documentation or monitoring

Pitfall: Improper reporting and documentation in an untimely manner can steer you away from the actual progress of the tasks, which can cause overlooking the frequent changes and unknown bugs. 

Ways to Avoid: Reporting insights from time-to-time can better channelise members to work as a team at every substep. Use established tools for this purpose to keep everyone updated with tasks, coverage or changes. 

Falling short of Skilled Resources

Pitfall: A lack of skilled resources results in inefficient test automation, improper tool usage, and limited ability to create reliable and maintainable test scripts.

Ways to Avoid: Invest in training and upskilling the current team on automation tools, frameworks, and best practices. Offer hands-on workshops, certifications, or mentorship programs to help team members gain expertise in the technologies being used. Additionally, when hiring, focus on bringing in talent with a mix of coding skills and testing experience. If immediate expertise isn’t available, consider using consultants or external experts to fill gaps while internal resources are being developed.

Upfront Investment

Pitfall: A high upfront investment in automation tools and setup can strain resources and delay ROI, making it challenging to justify the costs early on.

Ways to Avoid: Start by selecting tools that fit your immediate and long-term needs without over-committing to expensive solutions. Consider open-source tools or platforms that offer scalable pricing models, allowing your team to grow its automation suite gradually. Focus on automating high-value, repetitive tests first to achieve quick wins and demonstrate early ROI. Keep solid plans up your sleeves to track ROI. Invest mindfully so that it lets you stretch the plan in later stages of automation. 

Setting Realistic Expectations

Pitfall: Unrealistic expectations can lead to disappointment when automation doesn’t immediately deliver flawless results, cost savings, or eliminate manual testing entirely.

Our Take:

It’s fairly easy to exploit things like AI and test automation services, since it mostly includes self healing tools or DIY, making it resourceful to all. There still stands some shortcomings, which cannot be retrieved if you are not manually testing. Setting unrealistic expectations can throw off your progress chart in a second, while doubling your workload and hurt your wallet. It’s suggested to stay highly cautious and set boundaries on the tools and where you constantly try to bridge the knowledge base to understand the work better.

With that, human involvement stays unbeatable. Choose the right tools, with rightful access. It not only helps you overcome pitfalls fast, but also can potentially avoid them from happening.