Automation in Testing Three Day Course

Hands-on online automation training that gives you the skills to strategise, create, use and educate others about automation that supports your testing

Automation is everywhere, it’s popularity and uptake has rocketed in recent years and it’s showing little sign of slowing down. So in order to be successful with automation, all you need to know how to code, right?

No. While knowing how to code is a great tool in your toolbelt, there is far more to automation than writing code. Beyond learning to code you need to be able to determine:

  • What tests you should create
  • What data your tests require
  • What layer in your application you should write them at
  • What language or framework to use
  • If your testability is good enough
  • If it’s helping you solve your testing problems
  • What value you are getting from automation

Answering those questions is significantly harder than writing the code. Yet our industry is pushing people straight into code and bypassing the theory. Automation in Testing Online aims to help you answer those questions by focusing on not just creating automation, but working out opportunities to use automation as well as advocate for good practises and uses of automation in your team.

By taking you on a journey through a life cycle of planning, creating, using and educating others in good automation practises. The Automation in Testing Online course can offer learning opportunities for a wide range of people such as:

  • Those looking to get into automation
  • Those who already automate but are looking to improve their skills
  • Those who need to manage or coach others who build automation

This is achieved by offering 3 days of attendee-led online training that has attendees roleplaying as specialists in automation who are tasked with automating a modern web application. Throughout the online course, Richard and Mark offer their expert knowledge and share techniques and theory they use to succeed with automation whilst offering you the opportunity to explore the tools and ideas you want to learn.

What You Will Learn On This Course

Getting ready for the course

To maximise our live online time together, we’ve created some self-paced online content to set the foundation for the class, allowing us to hit the ground running with some example scenarios.

After completing the self-paced online courses, attendees will be able to:

Describe and explain some key concepts/terminology associated with programming Interpret and explain real code examples Design pseudocode for a potential automated test Develop a basic understanding of programming languages relevant to the AiT course Explain the basic functionality of a test framework

Day One

Day one begins with an introduction to the Automation in Testing mindset and then hits the ground running by kicking off the three-day roleplay. The start of the roleplay focuses on analysing our product, project and processes and visualising what we’ve learnt to inform us on what opportunities exist for automation. The afternoon then uses that new visualised knowledge to help us plan what we want automated checks we want to create.

By the end of day one, attendees will be able to:

Use the principles of Automation in Testing as a guide when working with automation Survey a given context to better understand its suitability for the use of automation Design a model of their product to inform them of how and where automation can be carried out Use visual task analysis to break down complex system behaviour to make it easier to identify automation opportunities

Day Two

The first half of day two will continue with our focus on automated checking. We are going to explore what it takes to design and implement reliable focused automated checks. We’ll do this at many interfaces of the applications.

The second half of the day focuses on the techniques and skills a toolsmith employs. Building tools to support all types of testing is at the heart of AiT. We’re going to explore how to spot opportunities for tools, and how the skills required to build tools are nearly identical to building automated checks.

By the end of day two, attendees will be able to:

Differentiate testing from automated checking and how the differences inform their automation strategies Judge what automated checks to build using system knowledge and risk analysis Design and build valuable automated checks Analyse automated checks to determine their intent and quality

Day Three

Day three takes a step away from automated checking to explore an area of automation in testing that is often ignored. Building tools to support testing activities. Through a series of hands-on activities and challenges, you will learn how to speed up your testing and get deeper into your applications through a range of different tools.

By the end of day three, attendees will be able to:

Experiment with different tools that can be used to support testing Use automated tools to support testing activities

Frequently asked questions

Do I need to be already currently working in automation to attend this course?

This course caters for every level of experience of working in an automation context. If you do work with automation already, we believe this course will provide you with numerous new ways to think and talk about automation, allowing you to maximise your skills in the workplace.

If you don’t, this course will show you that the majority of skill in automation is about risk identification, strategy and test design, and you can add a lot of value to automation efforts within testing.

I don’t have any programming skills, should I attend?

Yes. The online courses will be made available several months before the class, allowing you to establish a foundation ready for the face to face class. Then full support will be available from us and other attendees during the class.

I don’t work in the webspace, should I attend?

The majority of the tooling we will use and demo is web-based, however, AiT is a mindset, so we believe you will benefit from attending the class and learning a theory to apply to any product/language.

I’m a manager who is interested in strategy but not programming, should I attend?

Yes, one of the core drivers to educate others in identifying and strategizing problems before automating them. We will offer techniques and teach you skills to become better at analysing your context and using that information to build a plan towards successful automation.

What languages and tools will we be using?

The current setup is using Java and JS. Importantly though, we focus more on the thinking then the implementation, so while we’ll be reading and writing code, the languages are just a vehicle for the context of the class.