Automate repeats and explore options manually.
I went too far in the last post on automated testing. I was in a hurry to get it out to you, and forgot about the edges. The edge cases were staring me in the face too. I’m working on a project that currently needs lots of manual testing to validate assumptions about the look and feel. Furthermore they are hard to automate too.
I’ve been looking to automate what I can in this project and had been doing lots of that the past few weeks as I learned more about the platform and the available tools and libraries. Some parts were falling into place, so I was eager to shout about what you can do with automation.
I did that thing my kids do. Over generalise. ‘Dad, nobody does x’. I reply with a few examples, and they explain why that’s different. I did it this time. Sorry about that.
Manual steps are necessary too
You can’t automate everything. It can be hard to automate graphic components, and then they are brittle too as colours and positions change, which need to be kept in sync with your tests.
You also want to manually test potential irregularities that could arise, and which might be harder to automate too.
Plus, where possible you want to have people using the app and providing you with feedback. This is not testing the code, but whether you are gaining your desired outcomes. Are people finding it as useful as you hoped, or have you forgotten something?
Teach balance in testing
Guide your people to automate repetitive work, and to embrace the manual parts. Testing is a whole team effort from acceptance tests before you start development, through to unit tests while pairing and mobbing, to integration and release testing. There is something for everyone on the team, and for the team to explore how they can do the most valuable testing they can in the time available.
Explore with them how to prioritise their work and to reduce risks with good testing practices.
This post is part of a project pulling together my materials and ideas about Teaching Team Collaboration: the Human-Side of Software Development for software development to students.
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The ideas above are from my book 101+ Ideas to Improve Team Collaboration, which covers all of these little things that students can do to improve their collaboration. Also available via Kindle.