The creation of automation scripts for testing functionality/performance/load is a process that generates code in intself. Hence this is an activity that would require quality control processes tagged to it. Just like the core code that implements system functionality, the automation scripts form a supporting code base.
The variety of quality processes that a test scripts undergoes can be based on the concept of context based testing (relevance of context shall be expalined at the end of this post).
1. Peer code reviews
These can be done to leverage all the advantages of conventional code reviews and to implement relevant scripting standards and indetify static bugs within the script. The peer code review has an added advantage: since test scripts also need to be maintained constantly, familiarizing multiple team members with the test script can aid in script maintenance and de-risk the automations plan.
2. Having a skeletal requirements document for test scripts
The benefit of having a skeletal requirements document can aid in ensuring that the automation script has adequate functionality coverage. This can also be an part of the actual requirement traceablitiy matrix if one is maintained.
3. Performing a dry run sanity test using script
This is a case where a couple of test runs of the script is done and some relevant manual test cases are also executed to ensure that the results of both are in sync.
The relevance of using a context based approach in testing your test scripts is that based on the context of the system under test and its criticality the amount and type of testing done on test scripts can be increased or decreased. Hence doing an impact analysis of the possible failure of a test script is the most crucial part of this activity.
Ill fill in more details about these as and when i get around to stumbling on them
Please leave a comment if you can think of something else.
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