Valuable Feedback, Fast
If you’d ask me what is the goal of test automation, which I define as the use of tools to support our testing activities, my answer would be simple:
“To provide valuable feedback, fast”
While that goal sounds simple enough, I have seen many teams and organizations struggle to achieve it in the two decades that I’ve been active in the field. I have also noticed that teams often try to address their test automation challenges by looking for better tools, more tests, or more automation.
But more automation does not automatically mean better feedback. The real challenge is understanding what feedback you need, where and when you need it, and how to obtain it quickly and reliably.
Wouldn’t it be better to approach test automation from that perspective, instead of throwing another tool or another test at the problem and hoping it will make that problem go away?
In this three-day, immersive, hands-on course, you will take on the role of a consultant and engineer, helping ValuBank (a fictional online bank) to improve its test automation strategy. You will investigate ValuBank’s current situation, analyze evidence, identify and present what is preventing them from getting valuable feedback fast, and then design and implement improvements to their approach.
You won’t just talk about test automation. You will investigate a problem, make decisions, introduce new tools, techniques and ways of working, write and change tests, observe the results, and use what you learn doing so to build a better test automation strategy for ValuBank.
Yes, I’d like to book this course for my team!
Course overview
Day one - Investigate the problem
We start with a problem that might sound familiar: ValuBank’s engineering teams are struggling to get fast and reliable feedback from their automated tests.
You will receive information about ValuBank’s architecture, teams and development process and start investigating the problem as you would in a real consulting engagement. You will distinguish between facts, suspicions and questions, talk through evidence from developers and stakeholders, and investigate pipeline and test data, failures and postmortems.
By doing so, you will build an understanding of what is actually happening and determine what valuable feedback means for ValuBank. You will also learn to use the Test Automation Quadrant to help you reason about the value and efficiency of different types of feedback.
Activities on day 1 include:
- Investigating a real-world test automation problem
- Identifying facts, suspicions and questions
- Performing root cause analysis
- Understanding what valuable feedback means
- Analyzing test and pipeline evidence
- Distinguishing symptoms from underlying problems
- The Test Automation Quadrant
- Defining goals for improvement
Day two - Design and improve the feedback
Now that we have a better understanding of the problem, we start working on implementing actual changes at ValuBank.
You will work on several changes to the ValuBank system and, for each one, determine what feedback the team needs and whether the existing automated tests provide it. You will then design and implement improvements, using the principles of Valuable Feedback, Fast. These technical exercises are deliberately connected to the investigation.
However, learning to work with the techniques and tools that we discuss is not the main objective of day 2. The end goal is to learn to understand and reason about why a particular type of feedback is useful, where it should come from, and how to obtain it efficiently and reliably.
Activities on day 2 include:
- Reviewing existing tests
- Improving test design and testability
- Choosing the appropriate level for feedback
- Breaking down and improving higher-level tests where appropriate
- Using mocks to test earlier, more and more often
- Testing integrations between components and services
- Implementing and experimenting with improvements
- Using the Test Automation Quadrant to assess the changes and visualize progress
Day three - Build the strategy
We continue working on the ValuBank changes and use the results of our experiments to move from individual improvements to a broader test automation strategy.
You will consider what should happen to the existing tests, what principles should guide future development, and how ValuBank can continue improving its feedback system without simply accumulating more automation.
We then take a step back and use the 5W1H (Kipling) method as an alternative lens for thinking about a test automation strategy. We will use it to explore questions such as why we automate, what feedback we need, where we should obtain it, and how we should build and maintain it.
Finally, you will put your consulting hat back on and give ValuBank recommendations on where to go from here, including how they should measure whether their approach to test automation is actually getting closer towards where they want to be.
Activities on day 3 include:
- Turning experiments into a test automation strategy
- Using 5W1H as a strategy lens
- Defining principles for valuable feedback
- Prioritizing improvements
- Measuring progress and results
- Choosing meaningful test automation metrics
- Creating a roadmap for continued improvement
- Presenting and defending your recommendations
Who should take this course?
This course is for software development and testing practitioners, as well as tech and team leads, who want to learn how to approach test automation as a way of providing valuable feedback, fast.
It is particularly suitable for people who are already familiar with automated testing and want to improve the way they design, maintain and use automation within a development process.
The technical, hands-on exercises can be presented in Java, C# or TypeScript, so some familiarity with any of those languages will be advantageous. Even without that experience, though, there is a lot to get out of this course. The exercises are designed to encourage pair and ensemble programming, and examples and (my) answers to the challenges will be available throughout the course.
Course duration and delivery
The ‘Valuable feedback, fast’ course takes 3 days. The course is deliberately designed as an experiential workshop, combining investigation, discussion, technical experimentation and strategy work.
As a participant, you will:
- contribute to facilitated discussions, investigating and performing root cause analysis of test automation problems
- deliver short presentations on your findings and advocate for your ideas
- complete hands-on, technical test automation challenges to implement your suggestions for improvement
- measure and report on the impact of these experiments
- develop and defend a test automation strategy based on the results of the experiments performed
Due to the experiential nature of the course, I strongly prefer running it on site, in person. The maximum group size is 25 participants. There is no minimum group size, but having at least 6 participants contributes to better discussions through a wider range of backgrounds, ideas and prior experience.
I’m interested, what’s next?
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Yes, I’d like to book this course for my team!
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