Economics of Test Automation : Test case selection for automation

In this thesis a method for selecting test cases for test automation is developed and evaluated. Existing methods from the literature has been reviewed and modified resulting in the proposed method, a decision tree containing 23 factors grouped into 8 decision points. The decision tree has been used and evaluated in an industrial setting. The economic benefits were calculated with return on investment and the organisational benefits were measured in a survey at a software producing company. The result was that automated tests, selected with the decision tree, provided economic benefits after 0.5 to 4 years, these tests were also found leading to 3 organisational benefits: less human effort when testing, reduction in cost and allowing for shorter release cycles