Depending on the industry, product context, release context, complexity, and recoverability, your test plan varies.
Here is a general timeline of a Software Tester-
Understanding a specific story : 1 min to 10 days
Setting up an environment: 1 day to 30 days
Planning test coverage: 1 day to 5 days
Prep before test: 1 hour to 3 days
Running of /a/ test: 1 min to 10 minutes
Running a set of checks / tests: 1 hour to 5 days
Recognizing a bug: 1 second
Investigating it : 5 min to 1 day
Reporting it: 10 min to 30 min
What would you like to automate here?
Automate what is done repetitively?
Automate what breaks often?
Automate what is painful to do even if it is one time?
Automate repetition of checks?
Most people automate checks.
Many testers know – testing and finding the bug is where the fun is. So, instead of automating what is fun – automate what is preventing more fun in life.
Bugasura is aimed at providing more time to people who find bugs by automating bug reporting.
What are you building to automate other areas? Or are you automating the checks that keep breaking anyway?
Automation needs re-inventing in testing.
Most people are busy finding jobs and not solving problems.
Build tools. Automate things no one ever bothered to. Life will change.
Pradeep Soundararajan is the Chief Servant to Employees and Customers of Moolya Testing, a company he founded. He has been a Tester, Independent Consultant, Test Tool Developer (using Perl), Test Coach, Test Management Consultant and Product Owner of Testing Tools and then transitioning to a businessman. Pradeep is the author of the book Buddha in Testing. Pradeep is also leading bugasura.io - an issue tracker for fast-moving SaaS teams. Too much about him. He is who he is because of the people. He is living a life that can be represented in one word - Ubuntu. Many good people make him.
