In both agile and traditional projects, keyword-driven testing has proven to be a powerful way to attain a high level of automation—when it is done correctly. Many testing organizations use keyword testing but aren’t realizing the full benefits of scalability and maintainability that are essential to keep up with the demands of testing today’s software. Hans Buwalda outlines how you can meet what he calls the 5 percent challenges—automating 95 percent of your tests with no more than 5 percent of your total testing effort—using the proven, keyword-driven test method he uses. Hans discusses how keywords relate to other automation techniques like scripting and data-driven testing. The information and real-world application Hans presents enables you to attain a very high level of automation with the lowest possible effort.
Hans Buwalda
Hans Buwalda has been working with information technology since his high school years. In his thirty year career, Hans has gained experience as a developer, manager, and principal consultant for companies and organizations worldwide. He was a pioneer of the keyword approach to testing and automation, now widely used throughout the industry. His approaches to testing, like Action Based Testing and Soap Opera Testing, have helped a variety of customers achieve scalable and maintainable solutions for large and complex testing challenges. Hans is a frequent speaker at STAR conferences and is lead author of Integrated Test Design and Automation: Using the Testframe Method.
When you're responsible for testing, it's almost a given that you will find yourself in a situation in which you feel alone and out in the cold. Management commitment for testing might be lacking, your colleagues in the project might be ignoring you, your team members might lack motivation, or the automated testing you had planned is more complicated and difficult than you anticipated. You feel you can't test enough, and you will be blamed for post-release quality problems. Hans Buwalda shares a number of typical chilly situations and offers suggestions for overcoming them, based on his experiences worldwide in large projects. Specifically, Hans focuses on management commitment, politics, project dependencies, managing expectations, motivating team members, testing and automation difficulties, and dealing with overwhelming numbers of day-to-day problems. Take away more than forty-five tips and approaches to use when temperatures drop on you.