Automation is like running a marathon. It sounds like a great and noble pursuit until you actually go out and start pursuing it. At that point, it's easy to fail if you don't prepare yourself ahead of time for the challenges that are inherent to the process. Indeed, although automation can provide a number of awesome benefits, whether you actually reap those benefits depends on how easy it is to implement and manage automation tools. And, as many teams discover, doing these things may be harder than it often seems.