Getting value from test automation is hard. You and your team have got off to a good start and had some successes implementing test automation. And yet, you often find yourselves questioning the value you are getting from it. You spend time investigating and maintaining flaky tests, waiting for slow feedback, questioning what to automate and where or choosing the proper tooling, all whilst handling your other responsibilities. Whilst many other test automation training focus on tools, our course focuses on teaching you the mindset needed to maximise your automation efforts. You’ll leave this course a more confident Automator with a clear perspective for approaching automation and a tool belt full of actionable advice, skills, techniques, frameworks to succeed with automation in testing.

What Happened

Select a session to learn more about it.

  • Richard Bradshaw
  • Mark Winteringham
  • Understanding the Role of Automation in Testing
    Richard Bradshaw, Mark Winteringham
    Cohort

    Understanding the Role of Automation in Testing

    What

    Cohort

    Description

    We begin with an exploration into the traditional ideas of automation and the Automation in Testing mindset. You’ll be involved in activities that capture the ‘ideal’ skillset for someone involved in automation, and compare the differences and likenesses between the Automation in Testing approach and the current industry thinking around test automation.

    Learning Outcomes

    • Describe how the Cohort works
    • Locate necessary materials
    • Use the principles of Automation in Testing as a guide when working with automation
    • Define Automation in Testing

    Prerequisites

    Will be emailed prior to the cohort commencing

    Speakers

    Richard Bradshaw
    Richard Bradshaw
    BossBoss
    Richard Bradshaw is an experienced tester, consultant and generally a friendly guy. He shares his passion for testing through consulting, training and giving presentation on a variety of topics related to testing. He is a fan of automation that supports testing. With over 10 years testing experience, he has a lot of insights into the world of testing and software development. Richard is a very active member of the testing community, and is currently the FriendlyBoss at The Ministry of Testing. Richard blogs at thefriendlytester.co.uk and tweets as @FriendlyTester. He is also the creator of the YouTube channel, Whiteboard Testing.
    Mark Winteringham
    Mark Winteringham
    OpsBoss
    Mark Winteringham is a tester, toolsmith and the Ministry of Testing OpsBoss with over 10 years experience providing testing expertise on award-winning projects across a wide range of technology sectors including BBC, Barclays, UK Government and Thomson Reuters. He is an advocate for modern risk-based testing practices and trains teams in Automation in Testing, Behaviour Driven Development and Exploratory testing techniques. He is also the co-founder of Ministry of Testing Essentials a community raising awareness of careers in testing and improving testing education. You can find him on Twitter @2bittester or at mwtestconsultancy.co.uk / automationintesting.com
  • Richard Bradshaw
  • Mark Winteringham
  • Testability, Automatability and Modelling
    Richard Bradshaw, Mark Winteringham
    Cohort

    Testability, Automatability and Modelling

    What

    Cohort

    Description

    For our next session, we kick off a role-play that we will work on for the remainder of the Cohort. To build an automation strategy for a small team that is building a new application. We’ll begin our journey with activities that focus on understanding the impact of testability and automatability on our strategies. We’ll assess the testability and automatability of our role-play situation and use what we’ve learnt to build and critique models of the product we intend to automate.

    Learning Outcomes

    • Identify different aspects of testability and its influence on our testing
    • Identify different aspects of automatability and its influence on our testing and automation
    • Survey a given context to better understand its suitability for the use of automation
    • Design a model of their product to inform them of how and where automation can be carried out

    Speakers

    Richard Bradshaw
    Richard Bradshaw
    BossBoss
    Richard Bradshaw is an experienced tester, consultant and generally a friendly guy. He shares his passion for testing through consulting, training and giving presentation on a variety of topics related to testing. He is a fan of automation that supports testing. With over 10 years testing experience, he has a lot of insights into the world of testing and software development. Richard is a very active member of the testing community, and is currently the FriendlyBoss at The Ministry of Testing. Richard blogs at thefriendlytester.co.uk and tweets as @FriendlyTester. He is also the creator of the YouTube channel, Whiteboard Testing.
    Mark Winteringham
    Mark Winteringham
    OpsBoss
    Mark Winteringham is a tester, toolsmith and the Ministry of Testing OpsBoss with over 10 years experience providing testing expertise on award-winning projects across a wide range of technology sectors including BBC, Barclays, UK Government and Thomson Reuters. He is an advocate for modern risk-based testing practices and trains teams in Automation in Testing, Behaviour Driven Development and Exploratory testing techniques. He is also the co-founder of Ministry of Testing Essentials a community raising awareness of careers in testing and improving testing education. You can find him on Twitter @2bittester or at mwtestconsultancy.co.uk / automationintesting.com
  • Richard Bradshaw
  • Mark Winteringham
  • Deciding What to Automate
    Richard Bradshaw, Mark Winteringham
    Cohort

    Deciding What to Automate

    What

    Cohort

    Description

    With an understanding of the product we intend to automate, we turn our attention to identify what we should pick for automation. We do this by learning a technique known as visual task analysis (VTA) that enables us to break down our products into smaller, more manageable sections to assess as candidates for automation. You’ll use the VTA technique along with risk analysis skills to identify and prioritise potential automated checks.

    Learning Outcomes

    • Identify the differences between testing and checking
    • Summarise why an automation strategy should have checks on every level
    • Judge what automated checks to build using system knowledge and risk analysis
    • Use visual task analysis to break down complex system behaviour to make it easier to identify automation opportunities

    Speakers

    Richard Bradshaw
    Richard Bradshaw
    BossBoss
    Richard Bradshaw is an experienced tester, consultant and generally a friendly guy. He shares his passion for testing through consulting, training and giving presentation on a variety of topics related to testing. He is a fan of automation that supports testing. With over 10 years testing experience, he has a lot of insights into the world of testing and software development. Richard is a very active member of the testing community, and is currently the FriendlyBoss at The Ministry of Testing. Richard blogs at thefriendlytester.co.uk and tweets as @FriendlyTester. He is also the creator of the YouTube channel, Whiteboard Testing.
    Mark Winteringham
    Mark Winteringham
    OpsBoss
    Mark Winteringham is a tester, toolsmith and the Ministry of Testing OpsBoss with over 10 years experience providing testing expertise on award-winning projects across a wide range of technology sectors including BBC, Barclays, UK Government and Thomson Reuters. He is an advocate for modern risk-based testing practices and trains teams in Automation in Testing, Behaviour Driven Development and Exploratory testing techniques. He is also the co-founder of Ministry of Testing Essentials a community raising awareness of careers in testing and improving testing education. You can find him on Twitter @2bittester or at mwtestconsultancy.co.uk / automationintesting.com
  • Richard Bradshaw
  • Mark Winteringham
  • Designing and Building Automated Checks
    Richard Bradshaw, Mark Winteringham
    Cohort

    Designing and Building Automated Checks

    What

    Cohort

    Description

    This week it’s all about building the automated checks we’ve identified. Here is your opportunity to take your first steps into building your first automation, or expand your skills into new tooling. With our support, you’ll experience the whole journey of creating automated checks from picking tooling, implementing checks, debugging issues and learning where to find solutions to problems. You’ll then have the opportunity to demonstrate your automation journey to the cohort to celebrate your achievements.

    Learning Outcomes

    • Design and build valuable automated checks

    Speakers

    Richard Bradshaw
    Richard Bradshaw
    BossBoss
    Richard Bradshaw is an experienced tester, consultant and generally a friendly guy. He shares his passion for testing through consulting, training and giving presentation on a variety of topics related to testing. He is a fan of automation that supports testing. With over 10 years testing experience, he has a lot of insights into the world of testing and software development. Richard is a very active member of the testing community, and is currently the FriendlyBoss at The Ministry of Testing. Richard blogs at thefriendlytester.co.uk and tweets as @FriendlyTester. He is also the creator of the YouTube channel, Whiteboard Testing.
    Mark Winteringham
    Mark Winteringham
    OpsBoss
    Mark Winteringham is a tester, toolsmith and the Ministry of Testing OpsBoss with over 10 years experience providing testing expertise on award-winning projects across a wide range of technology sectors including BBC, Barclays, UK Government and Thomson Reuters. He is an advocate for modern risk-based testing practices and trains teams in Automation in Testing, Behaviour Driven Development and Exploratory testing techniques. He is also the co-founder of Ministry of Testing Essentials a community raising awareness of careers in testing and improving testing education. You can find him on Twitter @2bittester or at mwtestconsultancy.co.uk / automationintesting.com
  • Richard Bradshaw
  • Mark Winteringham
  • Tool Assisted Testing
    Richard Bradshaw, Mark Winteringham
    Cohort

    Tool Assisted Testing

    What

    Cohort

    Description

    We turn our attentions away from automated checking in this session and learn how we can use tools to support other testing activities such as regression testing, exploratory testing or test case execution. You’ll spend time learning about building a ‘testing tool belt’ and have the opportunity to learn about new tools you might not have used before. All of this tool knowledge will be used to solve a series of testing challenges that require you to go beyond automated checking and develop a relationship between you as a tester and your tools.

    Learning Outcomes

    • Analyse automated checks to determine their intent and quality
    • Experiment with different tools that can be used to support testing
    • Use automated tools to support testing activities

    Speakers

    Richard Bradshaw
    Richard Bradshaw
    BossBoss
    Richard Bradshaw is an experienced tester, consultant and generally a friendly guy. He shares his passion for testing through consulting, training and giving presentation on a variety of topics related to testing. He is a fan of automation that supports testing. With over 10 years testing experience, he has a lot of insights into the world of testing and software development. Richard is a very active member of the testing community, and is currently the FriendlyBoss at The Ministry of Testing. Richard blogs at thefriendlytester.co.uk and tweets as @FriendlyTester. He is also the creator of the YouTube channel, Whiteboard Testing.
    Mark Winteringham
    Mark Winteringham
    OpsBoss
    Mark Winteringham is a tester, toolsmith and the Ministry of Testing OpsBoss with over 10 years experience providing testing expertise on award-winning projects across a wide range of technology sectors including BBC, Barclays, UK Government and Thomson Reuters. He is an advocate for modern risk-based testing practices and trains teams in Automation in Testing, Behaviour Driven Development and Exploratory testing techniques. He is also the co-founder of Ministry of Testing Essentials a community raising awareness of careers in testing and improving testing education. You can find him on Twitter @2bittester or at mwtestconsultancy.co.uk / automationintesting.com
  • Richard Bradshaw
  • Mark Winteringham
  • Making a Plan to Deliver Valuable Automation
    Richard Bradshaw, Mark Winteringham
    Cohort

    Making a Plan to Deliver Valuable Automation

    What

    Cohort

    Description

    We conclude our Cohort with a reflection over everything we’ve learnt and a re-assessment of what is required to be successful with Automation in Testing. We’ll then work with you to identify the next steps you can take beyond this cohort training to deliver value to your team straight away.

    Speakers

    Richard Bradshaw
    Richard Bradshaw
    BossBoss
    Richard Bradshaw is an experienced tester, consultant and generally a friendly guy. He shares his passion for testing through consulting, training and giving presentation on a variety of topics related to testing. He is a fan of automation that supports testing. With over 10 years testing experience, he has a lot of insights into the world of testing and software development. Richard is a very active member of the testing community, and is currently the FriendlyBoss at The Ministry of Testing. Richard blogs at thefriendlytester.co.uk and tweets as @FriendlyTester. He is also the creator of the YouTube channel, Whiteboard Testing.
    Mark Winteringham
    Mark Winteringham
    OpsBoss
    Mark Winteringham is a tester, toolsmith and the Ministry of Testing OpsBoss with over 10 years experience providing testing expertise on award-winning projects across a wide range of technology sectors including BBC, Barclays, UK Government and Thomson Reuters. He is an advocate for modern risk-based testing practices and trains teams in Automation in Testing, Behaviour Driven Development and Exploratory testing techniques. He is also the co-founder of Ministry of Testing Essentials a community raising awareness of careers in testing and improving testing education. You can find him on Twitter @2bittester or at mwtestconsultancy.co.uk / automationintesting.com

    Frequently Asked Questions

    How many hours do I have to commit to?

    The live sessions are four hours long, and on average a further four hours of additional work is required each week. Majority of this work would be done individually, however, you may also be required to meet up with your group.

    Is there work to do in between the live sessions?

    Yes. After each session further activities will be assigned to you to be completed by the next live session.

    Is the cohort online?

    Yes. The cohort will be done fully online. We'll use Zoom for the live sessions, The Club forum and Slack.

    Are there any prerequisites?

    Yes. All the prerequisites will be sent to you in the form of handbook several weeks before the cohort starts.

    How long is the cohort?

    The cohort will run for six weeks, from Tuesday, 8th June until Tuesday, 13th July. There will be a live session every Tuesday for four hours. See the times above in the schedule.

    Is each live session recorded?

    Yes, each live session will be recorded and the links shared with you after each live session.

    Will I get a certificate?

    Yes. We'll send you a certificate of attendance post the training. It the dates, all the learning outcomes and is signed by the instructors.

    Do I have to attend all the live sessions?

    Yes, ideally you would attend every live session. However, as they are recorded, it could be possible to miss one, but I wouldn't advise missing anymore than one.

    I still have credit with MoT, how can I use it?

    If you have credit with Ministry of Testing and would like to use it to purchase a ticket for Exploring Non-Functional Testing Training? Get in touch with us via email at masters@ministryoftesting.com with your previous booking details and we will send you a booking link.

    How many attendees will there be?

    There will always be a minimum of 12 attendees for this training to go ahead. If the minimum amount of attendees is not met a month before the training, we will look to reschedule and communicate changes to all those registered. Where you'll be offered an alternative date if we have one, or a complete refund.