Best Practices for Planning Automated Test Efforts

With Agile, DevOps, and continuous integration driving rapid release cycles, organisations rely on automation to maintain quality without slowing innovation. And that’s why automated tests become so important.  However, success with automation is not guaranteed.

Poorly planned initiatives often lead to bloated frameworks, fragile scripts, spiralling maintenance costs, and disappointing return on investment. The difference between success and frustration lies in planning.

So, what are the testing best practice principles that can help organisations design, implement, and sustain effective automation strategies?

Start with clear objectives

Before writing a single script, define why you are investing in automated testing. There are lots of reasons to automate, but it is really important to understand why it’s useful for you. Some common reasons might include reducing regression testing time, increasing release confidence and lowering long-term execution costs. Other reasons may be to support continuous integration or improve defect detection speed.

It’s important that automation solves a business problem, rather than simply adding it to the process for its own sake.

Once you have a reason to automate, it is then important to clarify:

•       What success looks like
•       Which metrics will demonstrate value
•       How automation aligns with organisational priorities

Without clear objectives, automation efforts can drift, leading to wasted effort and minimal impact.

Understand what should (and shouldn’t) be automated

One of the most important elements of automated testing best practice is selecting the right test cases. Not everything should be automated.

Strong candidates for automation include:

•       Stable, repeatable regression tests
•       High-volume data-driven scenarios
•       Smoke tests for continuous integration
•       Critical business workflows
•       API-level validation

Poor candidates include:

•       Frequently changing functionality
•       One-off exploratory tests
•       Highly visual usability checks
•       Early prototype features

Automation is most effective when applied strategically. Attempting to automate everything leads to high maintenance and diminishing returns.

Adopt a risk-based approach

Automation planning should align with business risk. It’s important to consider what’s important to the business. For example, what are the integrations that are business critical, or which features generate the most revenue?

It may also help to consider the risks, such as which failures could cause the greatest reputational damage.

By prioritising high-risk areas, teams maximise the value of automated testing. Consequently, risk-based automation ensures:

•       Critical paths are continuously validated
•       Resources are allocated wisely
•       Automation supports business resilience

This alignment between technical activity and business impact is a hallmark of best practices in automated testing.

Build a maintainable framework

The long-term cost of automated testing lies not in initial development but in maintenance.

A poorly designed framework leads to:

•       Fragile scripts
•       Frequent false failures
•       High update effort
•       Loss of team confidence

Best practice principles include:

•       Modular design
•       Reusable components
•       Clear naming conventions
•       Separation of test logic and test data
•       Consistent coding standards

Investing in maintainability from the outset prevents technical debt within your automation suite. Remember, automation is software development. It requires the same engineering discipline as production code.

Integrate automation into CI/CD pipelines

Automation delivers maximum value when integrated into continuous integration and delivery workflows.

Embedding automated testing into pipelines allows teams to:

•       Detect defects immediately
•       Prevent faulty builds from progressing
•       Gain rapid feedback on code changes
•       Increase deployment confidence

Fast feedback reduces defect resolution costs and supports rapid iteration. Automation that sits outside the delivery pipeline often becomes an afterthought. True automated testing best practice places automation at the heart of delivery.

Establish clear roles and responsibilities

Automation initiatives often fail because ownership is unclear.

Questions to address early include:

•       Who designs the automation strategy?
•       Who writes and reviews scripts?
•       Who maintains the framework?
•       Who monitors execution results?

Automation is a team responsibility. Collaboration between testers, developers, DevOps engineers, and product owners ensures alignment and sustainability. As a team, it is really important not delegate automation to a single individual. Shared ownership increases resilience and continuity of knowledge.

Plan for ongoing maintenance

Automation is not a one-time project. Applications evolve. Requirements change. Interfaces shift. Without structured maintenance planning, automated testing quickly becomes unreliable.

Best practice includes:

•       Allocating time each sprint for automation updates
•       Regularly reviewing obsolete test cases
•       Refactoring scripts to improve stability
•       Monitoring flaky tests and addressing root causes

Maintenance effort should be built into capacity planning rather than treated as an unexpected burden.

Measure ROI and effectiveness

Automated testing best practice involves measurement.

Useful metrics include:

•       Execution time saved
•       Reduction in manual regression effort
•       Defect detection rate
•       Pipeline failure frequency
•       Maintenance effort versus execution benefit

These insights allow teams to refine strategy and demonstrate value to stakeholders. If automation is not delivering a measurable benefit, reassessment is essential.

Invest in skills and training

Automation success depends heavily on capability.

Teams require skills in:

•       Programming
•       Framework design
•       API testing
•       Version control
•       CI/CD integration
•       Test data management

Investing in training ensures that automated testing is sustainable rather than fragile. Cross-skilling manual testers in automation techniques can also strengthen career development and team flexibility.

Start small and scale strategically

Large-scale automation transformations can be overwhelming. Therefore, it helps to break it down into smaller steps:

1.     Identify a high-impact regression suite
2.     Automate incrementally
3.     Measure results
4.     Refine the framework
5.     Expand gradually

This phased approach reduces risk and builds stakeholder confidence. Attempting to automate an entire application at once often results in incomplete frameworks and burnout. Scalability should be deliberate, not rushed.

Balance automation and exploratory testing

Automation increases efficiency, but it does not replace human insight. Exploratory testing remains essential for:

•       Discovering unexpected behaviours
•       Assessing usability
•       Identifying edge cases
•       Evaluating user experience

Automated testing handles predictable validation. Humans handle creative investigation. The most mature organisations strike a balance between automation coverage and exploratory depth.

Avoid the “automation for its own sake” trap

Automation should never become a vanity metric. High numbers of automated tests do not necessarily indicate high quality.

Key questions to ask:

•       Are we automating meaningful scenarios?
•       Are we reducing real risk?
•       Are we improving release confidence?
•       Are we lowering execution costs?

Automated testing best practice focuses on value, not volume. Quality over quantity ensures sustainable success.

If you’re looking to strengthen your testing with automation best practices, check out our training courses to build automation skills in your testing team.