Principles of Software Test Automation
(CSTP #6)
Jamie Mitchell
This tutorial counts as one day of training towards the Certified Software Test Professional requirements.

This non-technical, one day course takes a broad look at the state of software test automation today. Starting out with a historical viewpoint, we discuss why automation projects have been so problematic. From there, we take a look at how to avoid the pitfalls and create the foundation of an automation project that will last. The automation project will be viewed from the needs of the organization that sponsors it; i.e. positive return on investment and how to ensure the project lasts the lifetime of the software it tests. An outline of the course follows:

1. Why test and why automate?
2. Historical results: do we really want to automate?
3. Automation as strategic investment
4. Where is the value? The truth about what automation is and isn’t
5. Common automation mistakes
• Underestimating
• Overestimating
• Setting realistic expectations
6. Automation requirements: questions to ask
7. A general philosophy of automation: internalizing your understanding
8. Planning for success
9. Other automation tools
10. The record / playback (R/P) tool
11. Models required for effective automation
• The manual test case model
• The R/P model and why it fails
• The event-driven model
• The state-change model
• The abstract-functionality model
12. Testability – helping out the tool
13. Selecting the right tool for your organization

Jamie L. Mitchell is a Software Test Automation Specialist. He is the Director of the International Institute for Software Testing. Jamie is highly skilled with the implementation of software test automation tools from the major vendors and developed a supporting infrastructure to significantly increase the flexibility, ease of use, and efficiency of the tools. Jamie was awarded the Master of Computer Science Degree from Lehigh University, is a QAI Certified Software Test Engineer, an instructor and board member for IIST, and a contributing editor for the Journal of Software Testing Professionals.