GooeyTest
Quality & Efficiency Driven 
 
 
Functional Software Testing
Technical Challenges
The usual testing challenges are centred around the costs of testing and the quality of delivery.
 
 
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DCs Consultancy Services Limited
Registered Office:
34 Beech Road, Farnborough, Hampshire, GU14 8EX
Company Registered No.5149387
VAT Registered No. 846 6520 10
Gooey Test In An Agile Test Environment
v
Any Other Automated Software Testing Framework
The Technical Challenges From Implementing Existing Testing Frameworks And Gaps Filled By Using Gooey Test
Gooey Testing In An Agile Test Environment
Some of the usual challenges of testing that are likely to appear when engaging any test framework, during the testing lifecycle in your test environment, have been considered below. Your company will continually try to reduce the testing budget whilst increasing the quality of delivery of its software development. This can be achieved by identifying these challenges in your test environment and then amending your testing discipline and strategy appropriately. Your company may even re-organise or restructure the individual functional test and non-functional test teams and consider the growing maturity of a “Centre of Excellence” (CofE) or perhaps 3rd party consultancy and off-shore test strategy solutions. If your company has considered consultancy/off-shore solutions you would also have considered the pros and cons that are centred around costs involved, time involved and communication.
Once your company has seen how Gooey Test bridges these testing challenges your company may even re-evaluate the overall costs of 3rd party consultancy and off shore test strategy solutions and opt to bring testing back in house. Let Gooey Test give your company a significant kick start in that direction to reduce costs and improve the quality of your applications.
Gooey Test - Quality Of Testing
• Coverage of Testing
o
It is impossible for 100% coverage of testing. To improve the quality of testing would be to increase the number of test cases
o
Increase Automation Progress. It is impossible to convert all Manual Tests to Automated Tests but aim for a target of 80% of automatable tests
o
Impossible to reduce the number of bugs to zero but an increase in the coverage of testing will identify more defects
 
• Need to prioritorise which Manual Tests should be converted to Automated Tests. This need to prioritorise is due to the time constraints and the human resources automation. A sensible guide would be the consideration of the following functionality:
o
Most frequently used business processes
o
Business critical functionality
o
Financial functionality
o
Bespoke coding
• Quality Assurance
o
The more areas of testing that are covered, the better quality of delivery there will be of your applications
Implementing Gooey Test
 
√   Reduces the test team’s effort in performing manual testing, by utlising automation execution
 
√   Reduces the test team’s effort in development and maintenance of manual test scripts
 
√   Reduces the test team’s effort in development and maintenance of automated test scripts
 
√   Increases the coverage of testing as less time is spent on test development and maintenance
 
√   Increases the number of test cases as less time is spent on test development and maintenance
 
√   Reduces the time of test execution readiness and test execution time which identifies defects earlier and provides more time for defects to be fixed
 
Gooey Test - Resource Management
• Testing resources are limited
o
A higher technical skill set required for automation technologies means that your test team is either trained in these technologies or3rd party consultants are used which is expensive
o
The use of 3rd party consultants is costly and time consuming through recruitment and retention, induction duration, seat and desk allocation, new hardware requirements, software security profiles, etc.
o
The use of internal Subject Matter Experts (SME) and Business Analysts (BA) is much cheaper but performing hundreds of manual tests can prove to be very time consuming
Implementing Gooey Test
 
√   Streamlines the automation test team, since any manual test that is created is automatically an automated test
 
√   Removes the requirement for the knowledge and experience of automation technologies for test creation and maintenance
 
√   Removes the requirement for external technical test consultants
 
√   Reduces the time of development of manual tests so that they can be created by Subject Matter Experts (SME) and Business Analysts (BA)
 
√   Reduces the complexity of development of manual tests so that they can be created by Subject Matter Experts (SME) and Business Analysts (BA)
 
√   Reduces the requirement for manual testers to perform manual test execution since all tests will be run through the automation technology

Gooey Test v Centre Of Excellence Automation Resource Trends

Gooey Testing - Software Testing Time Targets
Your software testing time targets can be a challenge even at the best of times and when there is delay in development there is an increase in pressure to deliver.
o
Delivery of development goals can change for many reasons. A delay in development of your or other teams' projects in a shared test environment could mean that your testing is squeezed in before a freeze on deployment of the application
o
Application deployment freeze periods which also occur during business critical periods, such as Christmas, increase pressure to deliver
o
For every new version of the application automation progress made by considering the amount of time before test execution needs to commence and the automation testing resources available to perform a combination of tasks in parallel
1) to create new automation tests to cover the new build functionality and
2) to perform the high maintenance of existing automation test scripts of a regression test pack. As more automation test scripts are created with each cycle of software development then the number of tests requiring maintenance also increases. This increases the time taken to maintain the existing automation scripts before test execution readiness.
o
To achieve the testing goals in the time targets, your company can either increase the number of testing resources or reduce the scope of testing which is either an increase in expense or risk to delivery
Implementing Gooey Test
 
√   Reduces maintenance time of the manual and automated test scripts between cycles of software development
 
√   Manual tests scripts are automatically updated to reflect the changes in the application between builds
 
√   A report of the changes made to the manual test scripts is automatically created and then provided to the test team
 
√   Reduces the test team resources required for manual test scripts maintenance
 
√   Removes the requirement for automation technology skills from the test team
 
Gooey Test - Budget Constraints
• Justifying the testing budget is a necessity. Securing the budget is also essential before development and testing can commence. The risk your company can face is to reduce overall development and testing costs without compromising the quality of software delivery. What is the cost of failure of application delivery and deployment? Some common areas that could be considered to reduce costs are:
o
Reducing cost of external consultants by increasing internal test team skills
o
Reducing cost of technical training for internal test team
o
Reducing the time taken for testing including new script creation, existing script maintenance and script execution time
Implementing Gooey Test
 
√   As all tests can be executed as automated tests this reduces the overall execution time and can be scheduled to be executed 24/7
 
√   Maintenance of all automation test scripts is performed simply and efficiently
 
√   Automated maintenance process of manual test scripts frees up manual testing resources
 
√   Reduction in automation technology skill requirements
 
√   Reduction in automation licenses is possible as only the number of automation replay computers is important
 
Gooey Test - Which Manual Tests Should Be Considered For Automation?
• Your company will determine which test cases will be automated as part of the automation progress. To do this the following criteria may be used
 
o
A test case that would be performed many times
o
A test case that would be performed by many testers
o
A test case that would be performed on many versions of the application under test
o
A test case that would be performed on different front end applications or operating systems
o
A test case that takes a long time to perform
o
A test case that takes a long time to perform data analysis
o
A test case that would take a short period of time to create
o
A test case that is part of many larger test cases, such as part of a full end-to-end business process
 
• To obtain a good return on investment on the automation technologies your company could currently be aiming to achieve an 80% automation target. The amount of time taken to create and maintain this level of automation testing is considerable and the costs involved are substantial
Implementing Gooey Test
√   All manual tests could be candidates for automated tests. Every manual test created can be executed as though it is an automation test
√   The testing framework enables the possibility of close to 100% of all manual tests to be automated
√   The process for your manual test team, Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) and Business Analysts (BAs) to create a new automated test is a simple process of copy and paste then update the manual test steps. These steps do not have to be written from scratch, but instead are just updated, saving time for manual test script development
 
Gooey Test v Offshore
If your company is already using an offshore test strategy solution then you would have already evaluated the benefits and drawbacks. Perhaps your company is considering an offshore testing solution as an alternative to an in-house testing solution because of the complexities and cost of existing traditional testing methodologies. If your company intends to perform testing over long periods of time then the overall cost may not be so beneficial in comparison to Gooey Test
 
Offshore solution
• Main benefit is cost saving due to cheap daily rate per person or per development stage
• Testing service provides dedicated long hours
• Communication
o
Little communication between the business, testers and developers makes it difficult to benefit from some test strategies, such as agile testing
o
o
Time zone difference can be several hours and can affect delivery time
Testing priority may be given to your company over other clients
o
Any miscommunication can result in costly and time consuming redevelopment and testing
Implementing Gooey Test
 
√   Comparable low daily rate cost per project
 
√   Time targets dramatically reduced for test script creation, maintenance and execution
 
√   Gives you control of testing in-house
 
√   Reliable automated testing solution
 
√   No delay to commence testing; start when tests and environment are ready
 
√   Consider all the benefits outlined in this gap analysis of the testing challenges
 
√   An automation technology would be required which is usually a one-off payment. Automation technologies used such as IBM Rational Functional Tester, Rational Robot, Hewlett-Packard Quick Test Professional and Micro Focus SilkTest
 
Consider your company’s costs that are involved for 3rd party automation consultants or an off shore test team. The comparison of costs involved and the time taken for each stage of automation test development, progress and maintenance and of manual test development, maintenance, and execution between Gooey Test, a 3rdparty automation consultant team and an off shore team has been provided below. Once you have compared the costs, then consider the amount of time taken.

Gooey Test Comparison Of Time and Cost With Third Party Consultancy and Off Shore

Automation Testing
Gooey Test
Third Party Automation Consultants
Off Shore
Development
 
 
 
Average Time To Automate One Test Case
2 minutes
4 hours
4 hours
Automation Testing Resources Required
0
5
5
Manual Testing Resources Required
1
0
0
Number Of Automated Test Scripts Over SDLC
1000
1000
1000
Time For Automation Test Development
2 minutes x 1000 tests = 4.5 days (One Week)
4 hours x 1000 tests / 5 testing resources = 100 days
4 hours x 1000 tests / 5 testing resources = 100 days
Typical Cost Of Automation Test Development
Much Less Than £75,000
£400 per day = £200,000
£150 per day = £75,000
Maintenance
 
 
 
Proportion Of Test Scripts Requiring Maintenance
10% = 100 test scripts
10% = 100 test scripts
10% = 100 test scripts
Time Taken To Identify Test Scripts Requiring Maintenance
automated process (report generated for the test team to review)
Depends on number of test scripts, average execution time & automation licenses
Depends on number of test scripts, average execution time automation licenses
Average Time To Maintain One Test Script
automated process (minutes for all test scripts to be checked and updated)
2 hours
2 hours
Automation Testing Resources Required
0
5
5
Manual Testing Resources Required
5
0
0
Time For Automation Test Maintenance
Less than two day
2 hours x 100 tests / 5 testing resources = 5 days
2 hours x 100 tests / 5 testing resources = 5 days
Typical Cost Of Automation Test Maintenance
Much Less Than £3,750
£400 per day = £10,000
£150 per day = £3,750
Execution
 
 
 
Execution Process Is Automated
Scheduled Task
Scheduled Task
Scheduled Task
Typical Cost Of Automation Testing
Much Less Than £78,750
£210,000
£78,750
 
 
 
 
Manual Testing
Gooey Test
Third Party Automation Consultants
Off Shore
Development
 
 
 
Average Time To Develop One Manual Test Case
2 minutes
30 minutes
30 minutes
Manual Testing Resources Required
5
5
5
Number Of Manual Test Cases Over The SDLC
1000
1000
1000
Time For Manual Test Development
2 minutes x 1000 tests / 5 testing resources = 7 hours = 2 day
30 minutes x 1000 tests / 5 testing resources = 100 hours = 12 days
30 minutes x 1000 tests / 5 testing resources = 100 hours = 12 days
Typical Cost Of Manual Test Development
Much Less Than £9,000
£250 per day £15,000
£150 per day £9,000
 Maintenance
 
 
 
Proportion Of Scripts Requiring Maintenance Over The SDLC
20% = 200 test scripts
20% = 200 test scripts
20% = 200 test scripts
Time Taken To Identify Test Scripts Requiring Maintenance
automated process (report generated for manual test team review)
Depends on number of test scripts, average execution time & manual test resources
Depends on number of test scripts, average execution time & manual test resources
Average Time To Maintain One Test Script
automated process (minutes for all scripts to be checked & updated)
15 minutes
150 minutes
Manual Testing Resources Required
5
5
5
Time For Manual Test Maintenance
10 hours = 2.5 days
50 hours = 6.25 days
50 hours = 6.25 days
Typical Cost Of Manual Test Maintenance
£250 per day = £625
£250 per day = £1550
£150 per day = £950
Execution
 
 
 
Number Of Manual Test Cases To Execute
1000
1000
1000
Number Of Manual Testing Resources
5 Automation PC Clients
5
5
Average Time To Execute Test And Report Results
10 minutes
30 minutes
30 minutes
Total Time For Manual Test Execution
167 hours = 21 days
30 minutes x 1000 tests = 500 hours = 62 days
30 minutes x 1000 tests = 500 hours = 62 days
Time To Completion Of Test Execution
21 days / 5 Automation PC Clients = 4 days
62 days / 5 testing resources = 12 days
62 days / 5 testing resources = 12 days
Typical Cost Of Manual Test Execution
Less Than £9,000
£250 per day = £15,500
£150 per day = £9,000
Typical Cost Of Manual Testing
Much Less Than £18,950
£250 per day = £31,550
£150 per day = £18,950
 
 
 
 
Cost And Time
Gooey Test
Third Party Automation Consultants
Off Shore
Total Number Of Testing Days
15.5 Days
135.25 Days
135.25 Days
Total Cost Of Testing
Much Less Than £97,700
£241,550
£97,700