Experience with instantiating an automated testing process in the context of incremental and evolutionary software development

The purpose of this article is to present experiences from testing a complex AJAX-based Internet-system which is under development for more than five years. The development process follows incremental and evolutionary lifecycle model and the system is delivered in subsequent releases. Delivering a new release involves both, the new tests (related to the new and/or modified functionalities) and the regression tests (after their possible refactoring). The article positions the testing process within the context of change management and describes the applied testing environment. Details related to documenting the test cases are given. The problem of automation of tests is discussed in more detail and a gradual transition from manual to automated tests is described. Experimental data related to the invested effort and the benefits resulting from tests automation are given. Plans for further development of the described approach are also presented.