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When to automate software testing? A decision‐support approach based on process simulation
Author(s) -
Garousi Vahid,
Pfahl Dietmar
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
journal of software: evolution and process
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.371
H-Index - 29
eISSN - 2047-7481
pISSN - 2047-7473
DOI - 10.1002/smr.1758
Subject(s) - automation , computer science , context (archaeology) , test management approach , process (computing) , test (biology) , test strategy , test case , software , model based testing , process automation system , test harness , software engineering , systems engineering , reliability engineering , engineering , software system , software construction , machine learning , mechanical engineering , paleontology , biology , programming language , regression analysis , operating system
Software test processes are complex and costly. To reduce testing effort without compromising effectiveness and product quality, automation of test activities has been adopted as a popular approach in software industry. However, because test automation usually requires substantial upfront investments, automation is not always more cost‐effective than manual testing. To support decision‐makers in finding the optimal degree of test automation in a given project, we recently proposed a process simulation model using the System Dynamics modeling technique and used the simulation model in the context of a case study with a software company in Calgary, Canada. With the help of the simulation model, we were able to evaluate the performance of test processes with varying degrees of automation of test activities and help testers choose the most optimal cases. The goal of the earlier study was to investigate how the simulation model can help decision‐makers decide whether and to what degree the company should automate their test processes. In this article, we present further details of the System Dynamics model, its usage scenarios and examples of simulation experiments independent from a specific company context. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.