US Whitepaper - 10 reasons test automation projects fail

It’s failing because it can’t survive change. 

If your automation only works until the first upgrade, you’re not alone.
In complex environments, automation often struggles at the point it matters most.

Test automation should reduce risk, speed up change, and increase confidence.

Yet many organizations quietly experience the opposite:

• tests break during upgrades and configuration changes
• false failures erode trust
• maintenance effort grows
• and manual effort starts creeping back in.

What’s interesting is this: Most automation programs don’t fail because of the tool.
They fail because of how automation is planned, designed, and sustained over time — especially in trading environments where systems, data and configuration never stand still.

Automation that can’t survive change isn’t automation — it’s technical debt. 

Why this happens (even to smart teams)

Even experienced delivery teams can fall into familiar traps:

• tests that rely on static data that inevitably changes
• brittle scripts that don’t adapt as workflows evolve
• environments that aren’t stable enough to support automated execution
• automation delivered at go-live, but without clear BAU ownership
• and, most commonly: automation built without enough domain context to reflect real business behavior.

Automation rarely fails in a single moment; it erodes over time:

• tests lose relevance
• failures become noise
• trust drops
• upgrades slow down
• and the organization slips back into expensive manual testing.

The result is predictable: automation starts strong… then gradually becomes less relevant, less trusted, and more costly to maintain.

The good news: these pitfalls are avoidable

Jed Dalton shares the 10 most common reasons test automation fails — along with proven ways to avoid them — in a short whitepaper.

Inside, you’ll learn how to:

✅ spot early warning signs that automation is heading off track
✅ strengthen buy-in across Business, IT and QA teams
✅ choose tools (and partners) that fit your trading ecosystem
✅ design automation that evolves with your systems — not against them.

Whether you’re starting your automation journey or looking to rescue a struggling program, the guide shares practical insight shaped by years of delivery experience across Endur, Findur and Allegro platforms.

Download your copy

If any of the points above feel familiar, the paper is a quick read, and a useful sanity-check for your automation strategy.

👉 Download here