Continuing my lessons learned from the thrilling interviews and years of test experience I bring you the saga of Automation and why I am not unhappy about not getting a job.
During a recent interview I was asked about automation and how I would use it to make testing better for this specific company. I thought a few moments and answered truthfully: ‘I don’t know… I don’t know what needs to be automated yet.” This answer made sense to me, but apparently was NOT the answer the manager I was sitting across from was looking for or expecting. He gave me a moment to continue, and I, being wise, decided I hadn’t really put enough foot in my mouth and should go for broke. ” I would automate the boring things…”, I continued, ‘And the things that would be easy to validate, such as checking output or log files, and anything that is monotonous or repetitive so as to free up myself or other testers for real testing.’ There we go.. that did it. I could tell by the look on his face that he and I vastly differed on our appreciation and valuation of automation. I could also tell I was about to get the polite handshake, which was rather quick in coming, and then I was shuffled to the door.
I don’t dislike automation, in spite of me not wanting to use it everywhere. I think it has a place. It is a tool, and like any other tool, should be used when appropriate. What I hate… and when I say hate, I mean with the furious intensity of a thousand burning suns, is when someone wants to automate everything, without consideration for what the goal of automating everything actually would mean. I think automation is excellent when used in a smart manner, applied to specific tasks rather than being used as the end-all solution to all testing.
One of my favorite bloggers and testers, Lanette Creamer, recently said ‘To summarize,..the boring part IS your job as a tester. Any kind of tester. However, it is also your job to try to automate the boring part, for the simple fact that humans aren’t especially good at repetitive tasks, and brain engaged testing is the best sort of testing. It may not be possible to eliminate tedious checks, but try to reduce them where you can. ‘ I completely agree here, and this is an excellent way to approach automation, in my opinion. Use automation to reduce the wear and tear on testers, removing the grind, and allowing them to move forward to additional testing. Of course, as the focus of Lanette’s article covered, sometimes the boring stuff can’t be avoid, or even automated, so trying to automate boring tasks isn’t always the smart play.
So, my being unwilling to try to shoehorn all of the testing into automation cost me an opportunity, but I really don’t feel like I lost out in this case. I’d have been miserable there, as I really need my random Exploratory testing to feel like I am testing stuff… And I still don’t hate automation. 😉