Plan which tests to automate first
Ranks my manual test cases by value and effort to automate, and plans the first two weeks of building a reliable automated suite.
Task:
Plan which of my manual tests to automate first and how to build the first two weeks of the suite.
Context:
The product is [product description]. We test manually [manual testing routine] and each release takes [hours of manual testing]. The manual tests I can list are [list of manual test cases]. Our automation tooling is [test tools or none yet], and [number of people] people can work on it for [hours per week] hours a week.
Rules:
- Score each manual test from 1 to 5 on how often it runs, how costly a failure is and how stable the feature is, then rank by score divided by estimated effort.
- Leave tests that depend on unstable features or visual judgment on a "keep manual" list with a reason.
- Plan the first two weeks in numbered steps, with the first test small enough to finish in a day.
- Name two causes of flaky tests that I should design against from the start.
Result:
A ranked table with the columns test, score, effort and decision, then the numbered two-week plan. End with one sentence on the single metric to watch.