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Thursday, May 7, 2015 - 8:30am - 9:30am
Keynote
K4

Blunders in Test Automation

In chess, the word blunder means a very bad move by someone who should know better. Even though functional test automation has been around for a long time, people still make some very bad moves and serious blunders. The most common misconception in automation is thinking that manual testing is the same as automated testing. And this thinking accounts for most of the blunders in system level test automation. Dorothy Graham takes us on a tour of these blunders, including: the Stable-Application Myth (you can’t start automating until the application is stable), Inside-the-Box Thinking (automating only the obvious test execution), the Project/Non-Project Dilemma (failing to treat automation like a project by not funding or resourcing it, and treating automation as only a project). Other blunders include Testing-Tools-Test, Silver Bullet, Automating the Wrong Thing, Who Needs GPS, How Hard Can It Be, and Isolationism. Different skills, approaches, and objectives are needed or you’ll end up with inefficient automation, high maintenance costs, and wasted effort. Join Dot to discover how you can avoid these common blunders and achieve valuable test automation.

Dorothy Graham, Software Test Consultant

In software testing for over forty years, Dorothy Graham is coauthor of four books—Software Inspection, Software Test Automation, Foundations of Software Testing and Experiences of Test Automation—and is currently working with Seretta Gamba on a new book on a test automation patterns wiki. A popular and entertaining speaker at conferences and seminars worldwide, Dot has attended STAR conferences since the first one in 1992.

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