Q&A on Codeless Test Automation with Forrester’s Diego Lo Giudice

I recently had the opportunity to participate in a webinar on codeless test automation with guest speaker Diego Lo Giudice, Vice President and Principal Analyst, Forrester. Continuing the conversation on codeless, here are Diego’s takes on some topics we didn’t get to explore in great detail.

Q. In the recent webinar, you mentioned that despite growing demands to release better quality software more quickly, test automation has plateaued. Why do you think that’s the case?

A. Many factors have caused this: limited budgets for testing, poor automation technology mostly based on UI led record and replay, skills miss-match, too much focus on process instead of practices and last and not least siloed organization and limited roles. With Agile and DevOps testers have been asked to become developers and apply coding skills and practices to build automation, but that comes with a huge re-skilling need that takes time. On the other hand developers taking on more testing is also picking up very slowly.

Q. What are some of the commonalities you see across organizations that succeed with test automation?

A. I see many and non-exclusive commonalities. Organizations:

• Automate the execution of tests: Those that have the skills create and optimize test automation with a development approach adopting typical developers tools and practices like, full version control of the automation assets, automating beyond the UI with APIs, etc. They take an SDLC approach to automation.

• Automate the design of tests: Adoption of a true shift left approach to automation starting from requirements and design. Generating and optimizing the right tests cases, and from these the automation.

• Select the right tools for the right job and for the right testing personas, which won’t be just a developer tester, a technical tester or a business tester but most likely a different mix of all depending on the type of application.

Q. Where do you see codeless test automation potentially delivering the greatest value for businesses and how do you see it best fitting in with traditional coded test automation?

A. Forrester believes testing takes a village. A range of testing personas are needed:

1) Business testers that don’t have any technical skills but need to test functionality and business requirements quickly (think the product owners of product teams).

2) On the other hand, testing SMEs will also need to be involved to make sure product teams are testing the right things, are testing enough and in the right way. They too need to automate testing. Both these roles would leverage codeless.

3) Dev-testers will also be needed because applications architecture are becoming more distributed and complex, and coded approaches will also be needed for non-functional testing and for functional testing at the API or web services level. The three have to collaborate.

Q. In addition to adopting codeless automation products, what are some other ways you see companies reaching greater levels of test automation maturity?

A. Besides shift left and “democratizing” testing across multiple roles, adopting practices such as BDD and model based testing approaches seem to be increasing and optimizing test automation.

Q. How do you think the ways teams use codeless test automation will change over the next three years?

A. The big game changer will be AI where ML and natural language will increase the level of abstraction of tools augmenting both codeless and coded led testers. If it holds to its promises, AI will make testing even more of a codeless experience just as it will also make development of enterprise applications less of a coded experience.

For more insight on how to mature your automation strategy, watch the on-demand webinar Automate QA Testing Easily with Codeless Tools.