ROI of Functional Testing - Metrics and Measures

The tech-savvy and increasingly demanding users of today do not settle for anything less than the best of everything, including the quality of software applications. In the digitized ecosystem, software applications have become the go-to vehicle for individuals as well as entities to leverage the fruits of the internet. However, given the rapidly growing competition, business enterprises have to tread a fine line between the quick delivery of applications and ensuring their quality is top-notch. Achieving these twin objectives is only possible if the testing process is complemented with automation, especially in the realm of functional test automation.

Business enterprises are scrambling to keep up with trends such as Agile, continuous testing, DevOps, and automation while upholding speed and flexibility in the value chain. To stay competitive, they are optimizing their development and testing processes while keeping costs low. Functional automation testing can facilitate otherwise time-consuming regression testing (and other types) by running it multiple times across device platforms, operating systems, and browsers. An automated functional testing strategy not only saves time and money but also identifies the inherent errors in the software application that are likely to be missed during manual testing. Let us understand how automated functional testing can deliver ROI for the company in the below segments.

What are the metrics to understand the ROI of functional test automation?

The implementation of functional testing for web applications can only be successful if the outcomes are properly analyzed using specific metrics. These can be in the form of test coverage, time savings, and errors found, among others. These metrics can be related to the project attributes, namely, risks, costs, schedule, and quality. Let us discuss these metrics in detail.

Coverage: In any software application testing process, especially related to functional testing, not every element, aspect, feature, or code can be fully automated for testing. It has to be a blend of automated and manual testing. So, when it comes to using "coverage" as one of the metrics for calculating the ROI of functional test automation, it would mean the number of automated test cases versus the total number of test cases that can be automated. Better test coverage enables the functional testing services to find and fix defects faster and ensure the software application performs to its optimal ability without carrying any risk.

Number of mitigated risks: The automation of test cases should be done based on their risk priorities. The risks could be related to events that have the potential to impact business or the inherent defects in the application, among others. A good way to measure success with respect to risks includes ranking them in order of priority, that is, from high to low. Thereafter, automate the test cases and find out the number and types of risks that have been mitigated.

Broken builds: The percentage of broken builds indicates code quality and best practices. So, the fewer the broken builds, the better the code is in terms of stability and accuracy. This metric measures the number of builds that were broken due to the failure of automated tests.

Script effectiveness: Here, the script relates to the test automation cases and how effective they have been in finding defects or errors. In other words, the greater the number of defects found, the more effective the test cases are. However, effectiveness can take a hit if the integration environment contains different testing environments.

Quantity of automated test cases: Test teams often tend to believe that if a certain number of automated test cases are present, the entire test exercise is bound to be a success. This is not always true, for the number of automated test cases reveals more about the effort being put into the testing exercise than the actual value obtained for business. Let us understand this with an example. If 90 test cases in a test suite are automated, it does not imply that 90% of human effort has been saved or that most errors will be identified. In this scenario, it is possible that the easiest and least informative cases were automated, while the complex ones were left out of the ambit. So, the number of automated test cases does not always reveal the efficiency of testing.

Conclusion

The metrics to check the ROI for functional test automation determine whether the business or process objectives have been met. The metrics need to be measured diligently with consistency and precision to obtain the right ROI. Moreover, the metrics chosen to measure the ROI should be relevant and easy to track. These can guide teams to identify areas where automation for functional testing can be improved.

James Daniel is a software Tech enthusiastic & works at Cigniti Technologies. I'm having a great understanding of today's software testing quality that yields strong results and always happy to create valuable content & share thoughts.