Course Length
This class is available in half-day and full-day versions.
Course Description
Automation is playing an ever increasing role within software development, including testing. Specifically to testing we see the desire to have many automated checks in place, in the ‘DevOps’ space we see more and more deployments being automated. The use of CI is becoming common place. But where will it end, what are the limits of all this automation.
In this interactive experiential workshop we will explore automation using Lego Duplo! We will create a number of ‘automated scripts’, ever increasing in complexity. We will adapt existing scripts for new purposes. All without writing a single line of code. This class is about automation, but we are looking at theory and patterns, not the code. If you can understand where to use automation, how to communicate what’s been automated, and fully understand what you are trying to automate, the coding part becomes a lot easier.
Attendees of this workshop will get an insight into the challenges of automating activities. Gain an understanding of the complexity required to automate something that is so simple for a human being to do. Experience how the initial design of your automation impacts all your future decisions. Observe first hand the limitations of automation. Hear real life experiences from myself and other attendees on their experiences with automation.
This fun, high energy workshop will leave you with a core understanding of where to use automation, how to explain it’s purpose with others and more importantly why you decided to automate something.
Takeaways
- An increased appreciation for the difficult task of automating
- An increased appreciation for the difficult task of automating
- Acknowledging that automation doesn’t stop once the task is automated
- How to share your design ideas with others
- How to talk about automation, with those who may not understand it
- An appreciation of the effort required to create a good design
- A simple, yet insightful activity to take back to the office
- Understanding that the language and frameworks are not the most important thing when designing automation.
I think you have the right content in the course and also the balance between the practical and theoretical parts is done very well and keeps the flow alive and by the whole training very good to follow. - Sebastian Mutti, Tool-smith Specialist @ Swisscom
Like the best DJs, the facilitators were able to assess the mood in the room and tailor accordingly. Many courses I’ve been on have been hampered by a rigid itinerary, this was not the case at AiT. A constant feedback loop kept the participants engaged and enabled them to shape the class to their needs. - Chris Whitehorn
The 3 day AutomationInTesting course by @FriendlyTester & @2bittester was a blast! Valuable concepts to gain a deeper understanding of testing and how automation can help us. Lots of interactive discussions, hands-on exercises, real-life problem solving! Really recommended. - Lisi Hocke, Principal Agile Tester @ FlixBus
Richard’s workshop beautifully captures the power and the pitfalls of using automation tools in testing through the medium of duplo. It is simple, powerful and very effective. Taking part in this workshop should be mandatory for anyone who writes code (or wants to), anyone who works with coders or anyone who leads such people. - Ben Kelly, Director of Reliability Engineering @ Moneytree
I felt that this week's training nailed our intended outcome of increasing people's confidence and competence around automation in testing. The confidence part alone is huge as it had been a bit of a phantom for many people in the room for a long time. I am looking forward to people's stories about how they continue the momentum from the course - Sebastian Mutti, Tool-smith Specialist @ Swisscom
In November 2016 I attended Richard's Getting Started With Selenium Webdriver course at Selenium Conf 2016. Although my passion for testing was almost dead (my passion-for-testing-monitor showed a flat line), Richard really inspired me to become a great check automator through his passionate, holistic (personal <=> professional) approach of the topic and testing in general. I truly recommend Richard as a teacher and person for speaking about testing topics. - Joel Grimberg, Software Quality Consultant @ Xebia Group International
First and foremost, kudos to Mark and Richard both for making [AiT] the best professional development experience I’ve had in my professional career. Every single person I talked to loved it. And I already started using the principles you taught us in everyday work decisions - Alex Landis, Software Test Engineer @ Daxko
Thank you for all the inspiration from the course! These past two weeks have been great. First of all we decided to go for Cypress, and the developers are stoked about how much they learn about the application when writing (or trying to write) tests. It has already resulted in some improvements in the code and has also given an explanation to some strange behaviour we haven't really been able to pinpoint before. Today we also had a small workshop, that I prepared based on your slides about auditing, where we did some models explaining the system - also much appreciated. - Sanna Huhta, Test Consultant @ ADDQ
Best Software Testing workshop I've attended in recent years. Can't recommend it highly enough! - Jarsto van Santen, Software Test Engineer @ Dienst Uitvoering Onderwijs (DUO)
I wanted to send you a quick note to say thank you again for the great training you provided in Utrecht! It has had a significant impact on me, on how I understand and talk about automation and on how I approach many topics! - Jérôme Lasserre, Team Lead - Test Automation and Reporting Tools @ Ubisoft