Heuristic Risk-based Test Automation – A hybrid approach

In the modern market, macro-organizational behaviour is driven by faster time-to-market which requires optimal usage of time and resources. The focus is on doing the right thing at the right time. Whenever there's too much to do and not enough time to do it, we have to prioritize so that at least the most important things get done. In testing, there's never enough time or resources. In addition, the consequence of skipping something important leads to higher cost of quality. In such a situation, the effective implementation of Risk-Based Prioritization for testing can quickly realize tangible benefits for the organization. Automation of this logical approach can further optimize the testing cycle.

Whether it is cost-push driven releases in product based organizations or demand-pull driven releases in service based organizations, the risk-based testing approach reduces the testing cycle and eventually release schedule. Automating the logical calculation eliminates the time spent to calculate the risk factors of the test cases. Hence here I am presenting heuristic analysis driven risk based testing wrapped in an automation framework.

Given the predicament, this presentation will focus on:

    • Assess risk using inside-out heuristic approach to identify the cost and probability weight factors.
    • Explain the methodical way calculating the risk factor using the identified weight factors for the business components.
    • Prioritize the test cases to find out what to test or automate leading to optimized testing cycle.
    • Optimize the testing and automation effort further by mapping the prioritized business components with Pareto’s principle.
    • Explain the logical component which calculates risk factors.
    • Strategize the abstraction of logical component from the business and automation components in the automation framework.
    • Alternative to plug in the logical component into the existing functional as well as regression automation components.

The presentation will also disseminate knowledge about the benefits and challenges of implementing and automating risk based testing.

Download Pdf

Speaker's Profile

Shabnam

Shabnam Choudhury,
Test Architect,
Happiest Minds Technologies


Shabnam Choudhury started her career in software testing in the year 2000. She believes, “to be a tester is easy, but to be a good tester can be very challenging”. Hence in her strive to be a good tester she keeps exploring different ways to make testing efficient while delivering quality products. This has led her to discover the risk-based testing strategy which she has studied in-depth and has implemented a complete solution around it.

Shabnam is currently pursuing the Executive Management Program at IIM, Bangalore. She has completed her Masters in Computer Applications from Utkal University, Bhubaneswar, Odisha in the year 2000. During her career she has worked with Mphasis, MindTree and then Yahoo Software Development, where she worked for 6 years.  

During this tenure of 12 years she has been into test management, test automation and has been involved in various flavours of testing in a wide range of domains. Serving as Test Architect in Happiest Minds, she aspires to take the testing practice to the next level through her learning and experience.