QW2002 Paper SB4 Hans Buwalda (LogiGear Corporation) The Essentials of Testing and Test Automation

Key Points

• Typical challenges of testing and test automation
• "Essentials", key considerations for success
• Benefits and consequences of applying or ignoring essentials

Presentation Abstract

Testing and test automation are among the important and at the same time most difficult tasks in IT. Effective test design and efficient test automation are key to the success of many organizations, even at the business level. However, they are often a constant source of costly nightmares and are often neglected by management sometimes purely out of frustration.

If you look carefully at many of the projects that go on it turns out that the a relatively small set of key issues re-appear over and over again, in many disguises. One could call them the "essentials". These essentials are equally divided among:
• Test development
• Test automation
• Test management

This talk will present what, from the perspective of the speaker, are the essential considerations to be successful with testing and test automation. For each of the considerations attention will be paid to what the benefits are in applying it and the typical pitfalls if you don't!

The considerations are based on 8 years of experiences in numerous projects, many of them using earlier presented concepts like the actions words and soap opera testing. The audience is invited to take the essentials home and use them to become more successful.

About the Author

Hans Buwalda, ABT Chief Architect, leads LogiGear's Action Based Testing™ research and development, including ABT Toolset™ operations, and oversees the practice of ABT methodology. Prior to joining LogiGear, Hans served as Project Director at CMG The Netherlands where he was the original architect behind the Action Words approach - an integrated method for planning, managing, and deploying software testing and test automation. Hans is an internationally recognized expert specializing in action-based test automation, test development, and test-technology management. He speaks and presents workshops at international conferences on testing concepts such as Action Based Testing, The Three Holy Grails of Test Development, Soap Opera Testing, and Testing in the Cold. Hans authored (along with Dennis Janssen and Iris Pinkster) Integrated Test Design and Automation (Addison Wesley 2001). He holds a Master of Science degree in Computer Science from Free University, Amsterdam.