Software Test Automation: Principles of Success

Course Description

Test automation has become something that we all think we want; it sure would be nice if we all knew what it meant. Unfortunately, many in the software quality field (and their managers) do not. When it comes to understanding automation, many of us are blind persons describing the elephant. Not knowing what automation really is may be a critical problem for your organization; especially if you are prepared to spend many thousands of dollars purchasing tools. The belief that automation is the 'testing silver bullet' has cost companies throughout the world untold millions (perhaps billions) of dollars.

If you don't understand the positives and negatives of automation before investing your money in a test automation program, you stand a better chance of hitting the lottery than of making your project pay off.

This non-technical, one-day course will discuss test automation from several different viewpoints, but always from the understanding that a positive return on investment (ROI) is the only real reason to expend scarce resources on an automation program. Starting out with a historical viewpoint, we discuss why automation projects have been so problematic. From there, we take a look at how to avoid the pitfalls and create the foundation of an automation project that will last the lifetime of the software project it tests.

You will

  • Learn how to view automation with a critical eye.
  • Discover the historical reasons why automation has such a high failure rate.
  • Understand automation requirements.
  • Learn how to create a philosophy of success for automation in your organization.
  • Discover the models needed to design successful automation.
  • Find out how to integrate automation needs with system developers to improve testability.

Who should attend?

This course is for all testers, their managers and other organizational persons who need to understand the realities of this strategic investment.

Format

While this course is mainly a lecture course, all attempts are made to get the attendees to discuss their own experiences with automation - both successes and failures.

Course Outline

  1. Why test and why automate?
  2. How bad can it be? Historical results: do we really want to automate?
  3. Automation as strategic investment - what you need to understand before investing your money.
  4. Where is the value? The truth about what automation is and isn't
  5. Common automation mistakes
  6. Underestimating
  7. Overestimating
  8. Failure to se t realistic expectations
  9. Automation requirements: questions to ask
  10. A general philosophy of automation: internalizing your understanding
  11. Planning for success
  12. The record / playback (R/P) tool
  13. Models required for effective automation
  14. The manual test case model
  15. .The R/P model and why it fails
  16. The event-driven model
  17. The state-change model
  18. The abstract-functionality model
  19. Testability - helping out the tool
  20. Selecting the right tool for your organization

Bio

Jamie Mitchell: Owner and Principal Consultant / Test & Automation Consulting LLC

Jamie Mitchell brings over 25 years of testing experience, both hardware and software, to his test automation company. Mr. Mitchell is a true pioneer in the test automation field. He has been working with a variety of test automation tools since the first Windows tools were released with Windows 3.0. He has written test tools for several platforms; for Windows, he has developed the Test - Automation Programming Interface (T-API), a leading edge test automation solution that increases the flexibility, ease of use, and ROI of automated tools.

In his role as Principal Consultant at Test & Automation Consulting LLC, Jamie Mitchell is responsible for developing and implementing test automation initiatives for a range of clients. In addition, Mr. Mitchell also provides training, mentoring, and expert technical support.

Jamie is the former Director of The International Institute for Software Testing, the Lead Automation Engineer for American Express Distributed Integration Test (lab) / Worldwide, and has successfully architected and implemented test automation projects for many top companies including American Express, Mayo Clinic, IBM AS/400 division, ShowCase Corporation and others.

Mr. Mitchell holds a Master of Computer Science degree from Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA. He holds the Certified Software Test Engineer certification from QAI. He is a charter member of the Austin Workshop on Test Automation, and a regular speaker at several international conferences, including SQE, QAI and PSQT.