While it has been proven that automated testing is valuable and can produce a successful return on investment, there isn’t always an immediate payback on investment. It’s important to address some of the misconceptions that persist in the software industry and to manage the automated testing utopia. Following is a list of just a few of the misconceptions that need to be addressed. People often see test automation as a silver bullet; when they find that test automation requires a significant short-term investment of time and energy to achieve a long-term return on investment (ROI) of faster and cheaper regression testing (for example), the testing tool often becomes “shelfware.” This is why it’s important to manage expectations in order to introduce automated testing correctly into a project.