I got a pretty nice link today. Check out that short article about the usual obstacles when trying or applying test automation: Why Test Automation Costs Too Much. Elisabeth covers the aspects of disconnected teams and the often practiced sharp distinction between programmers and testers pretty well.
Bottom line: the reason test automation costs so much is that it’s done in a silo far removed from the development effort.
Buffered from the consequences of design decisions that decrease testability, the developers continue to create software that’s nigh onto impossible to automate.
And isolated from the technical expertise of how the software was constructed, the test automation specialists are in a situation where they cannot help but be both inefficient and ineffective.
Enjoy reading!