Driving business value using test automation

As an IT leader you know that getting quality software to market faster maximises business value.  Your teams need to focus on delivering accuracy and quality while under the pressure of efficiency and speed. Today’s complex technology landscapes increase your challenges and changes in your team dynamics after COVID-19 may have compounded this further!

Now is an ideal time to make a quick start using test automation to get things moving more effectively.

Adopting test automation into your software development and testing processes offers benefits for the whole team, not just your QA’s:

• Developers will receive faster feedback on whether their code changes satisfy the story requirements.
• QA’s will have more bandwidth to focus on exploratory testing with their repeatable checks automated.
• Decision makes will see demonstrable test coverage and transparent results for faster decision making.

Let’s look in more detail at our top 6 reasons how test automation adds value to your business.

1. Reduces risk

Automation is all about providing teams with the confidence that your tests are running frequently and delivering results that meet expected criteria.

Test automation improves the visibility of results and a clear audit trail of test data recorded and stored for your convenience. It also uses technology for repetitive tasks to remove human error and ensures consistency and repeatability of tests.

2. Improves quality

A common mistake made by businesses is not having the time or resources to perform in-depth testing within the software or product when it comes to exploring multiple scenarios.

With test automation, you can increase the speed, accuracy, and consistency of tests, as well as overall testing coverage with minimal additional effort – from smoke testing, to code analysis and more.

At Spike95, we’ve been helping clients in variety of sectors go above and beyond their original testing scope by providing test automation packages for faster feedback on code changes, alongside implementing a CI/CD pipeline as part of their automation workflow.

3. Reduces cost

Knowing where to prioritise your energy and budget in delivering higher business value is crucial towards successfully managing your IT operations.

Automation allows you to execute unattended tests immediately after code check in, overnight or out of hours, even within different environments. Furthermore, as new defects or issues emerge these can be quickly and easily resolved – saving significant costs to projects that could have gone sour later on.

4. Faster time to market

New operating systems, patching, device upgrades and consumer behaviour – all impact your businesses marketing and digital ecosystem.

Responding to changing product requirements based on current business objectives means having a robust test automation strategy in place, which can allow teams to adjust or customise different scripted test cases for the same application.

Automation produces faster feedback on the quality of planned changes. Plus, automated regression tests for every change helps to shorten the delivery process by ensuring it has no adverse effect on any existing features – allowing the team to focus on exploratory work and final feature testing.

5. Retains knowledge

Automated tests are accurate up until the last build/execution cycle with no assumed knowledge built into them. They form living documentation of what your systems and applications do.

This allows specifications to be automatically executable and gives IT teams important information when it comes to developing, testing, and maintaining programmes efficiently.

Static documents written during development provide little value as they can become abandoned and out of date that very moment, but living documents are detailed, up-to-date, easy-to-red manuals that even new members can understand.

6. Early defect detection

Defects are found much earlier on in the process at a significantly lower cost to fix. Any major issues uncovered by automated tests are repeatable due to their consistent nature, easier to document from logs and screenshots produced and in the long run create a near-perfect bug free product.

Check out our case studies to see where Spike95 have successfully helped other companies to automate their testing, and our services overview to understand our structured and industry-leading approach.

Want to use test automation to drive more value?

Our Quick Start solution gets test automation up and running in your business with all of the necessary tools, technology integrations and processes to make sure you can safely adopt this into your existing teams with the necessary training and support.[vlt_social_share title="Like this post? Please share!"]