Automation is all about the framework

“I don’t think you can help us. Our testing environment is very unique.”

 If I had a penny every time I heard a prospective enterprise customer make this statement.. well you know how it goes; I probably wouldn’t be writing blogs.

Don’t get me wrong – that statement is very valid from the customer’s perspective. When it comes to test automation everyone is playing catch up – so much so that people end up taking shortcuts and hacks to desperately keep up to speed with the sheer amount of testing that is needed in today’s complex network world. And the number of hacks and shortcuts in their environment convinces them that what they’re testing must really be unique.

The issue here is that most test organizations are concerned about the now. Rightly so – their software, their work, their paychecks all depend on the now. And to fix the now, what they think they want is a push-button solution for all their current problems. But if the test environment is really as unique as they say it is, by the time someone ends up writing the push-button solution the test organization has moved on and is now facing newer challenges. And creating more hacks and shortcuts.

This vicious cycle can only be broken if test organizations pay more attention to later i.e. what’s coming down the pipe. So instead of looking for a push-button test solution, what they really need to be looking for is a test automation framework – one that is flexible, malleable and customizable to their future requirements. Then it doesn’t matter how unique or complex the environment is – a rock solid framework should be able to adopt to their changing needs.

So how does one start paying attention to later? One way is by not asking test vendors to provide test content or pre-existing tests. This is akin to keep asking to be given a fish – you will be hungry once the fish is eaten. What test organizations need to do is to look at their test vendors and demand to be taught how to fish – in essence be guided not to simply run the test, but to be trained as architects to build a solid foundation for their organization’s testing needs for today and tomorrow.

Because once you are taught to fish – you eat today and tomorrow.