The Automated Acceptance Testing Paradox - Mark Winteringham

Talk Description

There have been times when I have struggled with Automated acceptance testing, Test Driven Design and Acceptance Test Driven Design and how it impacts my role. I've also seen other testers struggle with too. Whether it's Testers being pushed out of roles in favour of Developers automating all their acceptance tests or Automators spending hours tearing their hair out maintaining brittle end to end tests, there's no denying it. Automated acceptance tests simply don’t work as tests and can have a substantially negative impact on a test strategy. But why don't they work and why use them at all if they don't?

The automated acceptance testing paradox' draws on my experiences to help answer these questions by:

• Investigating the role of 'Acceptance testing', what are they? and who deems them as 'Acceptable'?
• The misconceptions around the benefits of Automated acceptance testing, ATDD and TDD.
• The paradox of how the tools used in theses approach cannot completely determine a feature 'acceptable'
• Present the real benefits of TDD and ATDD and how they can sit alongside your test strategy in harmony to help create a more robust testing strategy.

So if you are looking to get your automation out of the rut it is in or avoid it completely, looking to create a robust test automation strategy or find out where and why there is value in Automated acceptance tests and other automation in testing activities, then come learn about 'The automated acceptance testing paradox'.

Join the discussion about TestBash Belfast over at The Club

By the end of this session, you'll be able to:

Mark Winteringham

Tester, Toolsmith, Author and Instructor

Mark Winteringham is a tester, toolsmith and author of AI-Assisted Testing and Testing Web APIs, with over ten years of 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, 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