The automation life cycle is a structured approach to design, execute, and maintain test automation. This structured approach is necessary to help steer the test team away from common test program/automation mistakes.
This chapter covered all the aspects of test automation in a broader perspective. Having knowledge of the automation life cycle and key activities in each phase helps in streamlining tasks and goals. Well-defined processes and historical data are helpful in test estimation, and tool evaluation and selection. The architecture or design is based on implementing the test automation and achieving goals. In the next chapter, we will discuss the various features of QTP and concepts that are essential to create reusable scripts.