Some Observations on the Transition to Automated Testing
Robert A Zakes · 2009
We started on our test automation effort about two years ago when we realized testing was slowing our application development and our agency faced monumental development projects. After some research we decided to use Selenium as our test automation tool and started scripting. Lisa Crispin’s workshop at the 2007 Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference (PNSQC) gave us some valuable insights and several attendees validated our choice of Selenium. We now have extensive regression scripts developed for most of our systems and run them religiously for every build. This paper relates our observations along the way. We found test automation had many uses besides building regression scripts, and they will be described in this paper. It will also describe the process of how to benefit from the maintenance of regression scripts for a new release. In addition, this paper will examine some lessons learned, describe our focus for ad hoc testing, and present some metrics of manual vs. automated testing. Biography Bob Zakes is currently the Requirements and Testing Manager for the Oregon Secretary of State’s office. Bob has over 40 years experience in project management and software requirements and testing and has a BS in Engineering along with an MBA from the University of Illinois. He has worked for IBM as marketing representative, instructor, and marketing and systems engineering manager; National Retail Systems West as product manager; Hanna/Sherman International as product and engineering manager; and the State of Oregon, where he has served as project manager for several successful system implementations. He is currently responsible for testing Oregon’s Central Business Registry, the Public Records System, and ORESTAR (Election Reporting).