Technical Test Automation Challenges: Patterns and Solutions

Many organizations find that test automation does not work as well as they thought it would. In many cases, these failures are due to generic technical reasons, which can be fixed with relative ease. Other solutions that have worked well are patterns, common to automation efforts at any level with whatever tools you are using. Dot Graham focuses on often-neglected technical issues—i.e., non-management issues—and the patterns that help solve them. These are not development or code patterns—this is a code-free tutorial. Using a set of patterns developed with Seretta Gamba, Dot looks at issues such as BRITTLE SCRIPTS, INADEQUATE DOCUMENTATION, and UNFOCUSED AUTOMATION, and discusses patterns such as TESTWARE ARCHITECTURE, DATA-DRIVEN vs. KEYWORD-DRIVEN, DOCUMENT THE TESTWARE, AUTOMATE WHAT’S NEEDED, INDEPENDENT TEST CASES, TOOL INDEPENDENCE, COMPARISON DESIGN, and EXPECTED FAIL STATUS as well as other issues and patterns that participants want to investigate. Learn how to navigate efficiently through the patterns documented on the Test Automation Patterns Wiki and develop a better understanding of technical test automation challenges and solutions.

Note: We will be working online with the wiki during this tutorial, so please bring a laptop, tablet, or similar web-enabled device.