Every team will have a robust Playwright test suite which might have taken weeks or even months to build it. It has covered all of the critical flows and would also be integrated with CI/CD pipelines.
But what next? There isn’t a certain answer to this as no one is actively running it.
Many teams struggle to build a test automation framework but fail to get value from it. Is it because the tests are bad? Absolutely not! It is because none other than QA know how to run it. Hence, no one is adopting it as a part of daily workflow.
The Reality of Test Automation Adoption
A lot of teams follow the same pattern:
- They spend time carefully writing Playwright tests.
- They make sure to integrate them into the CI/CD pipeline.
- They only run the tests once in a while, usually just before a release or when something breaks.
Then what happens? People start to ignore the test suite as they don’t trust it to work. Even though the automation suite didn’t fail, its necessity is compromised and hence it’s not used. Rather than being a part of everyday development, it becomes something extra like an additional step.
Why Teams Ignore Their Own Test Suites
Automation is actually meant to simplify the task, yet executing Playwright tests somehow makes the work even more complicated. For many teams, running tests is not as easy as it should be because no one except the QA knows how to run the tests and tracking the results can be quite tricky as there is no overall tracker for it. If a test suite returns flaky, unstable results, then it’s questionable. If running tests seems like an additional technical task, annoying or time-consuming, most people will not care to do it and stop running it.
The major issues faced by teams when running Playwright test suites are:
- Only a few team members are aware of how to execute the tests.
- Setting up data and environment each time before running the tests.
- Execution time taken is too long even for simple tests.
- Debugging the failure logs is very exhausting.
- Inconsistent results of the tests make it unreliable.
- Tests are not proactively executed and are used only when absolutely required.
How Do We Fix This?
The problem isn’t with the Playwright suite but with how we integrate the tests into our daily workflows. We need to adopt these tests as a part of daily development instead of treating them as an extra step.
Here’s how:
✅ Make Automation Effortless
- Run tests from one place without having to install or do set ups, so that everyone can run it.
- Minimize test execution time so it doesn’t feel like a blocker.
- Make it easier than manual testing.
✅ Make Results Clear
- Test results should be clear and easy to understand.
- Eliminate the guesswork so that teams start having faith in test automation.
✅ Make Automation a Habit
- Automation needs to become a part of the daily workflow and not to be ignored.
- Running tests must be as simple as hitting the play button.
Start making sure that all the tests are actually used. Even the greatest test suite of a project will become worthless if no one is running it.
Want to make things right?
You might have an expectation that building a Playwright Suite would improve efficiency, catch bugs early, and reduce manual work. But if no one is actually using it on a regular basis, do you think it will make any difference?
In many teams, there are only certain people who know about the test suite and they only use it during the final phase of release. But test automation should not be another hurdle.
✔️ It should make your work easy and simple.
✔️ It should provide clear, and understandable results without any requirement for complex analysis.
✔️ It should fit naturally into the team’s daily workflow so that they can run it consistently without any blockers.
Conclusion
Test automation should be easy, and not frustrating. If it is a pain to run tests, people will not run them unless it is mandatory. Running automated tests should work for every team without making testing or installation harder.
“Picture a system where anyone on the team can easily run tests in one click without complex installations or set ups. Imagine a scenario where running automated tests can be seamless and time saving. This can become true!!“
The future of test automation must be easy for teams to adopt without making it more challenging. There always is a better way!