test objects design

2 Years Ago. Relevant today?

I wrote the following post over 2 years ago on IBM forum about skills for implelenting automated QA department. I do hope some of it is still relevant today. So…

Be prepared for massive failure if you are going to set up Automated QA department. What follows is my opinion from experience.
You need a Test Designer. This person will work with Business Analyst to Define Use Cases and Scenarios to create Coverage pathways. The Tests will written (at best modeled as crude Activity Diagrams). Use Cases best written in Outlines or Excel spreadsheets. I actually assume you have a strong Requirements Management in place because if you don’t then forget automating. Not worth wasting money on it. Better spend the resources on defining getting clarity at the edge of ambiguous Requirements Specifications.

Translate Specifications into Use Cases (customer scenario narratives and not just few pretty pictures).
Now that you have it write a Test Case specifications mapping it to Use Case Scenario Specifications. Once you have specification in place guard it with Requirements Management methodology.
I would say that the above needs to be pretty strong. Then hire a super Duper scripter (expert in Robot or XDE Tester) and pay them to implement framework and testcases to the specifications created by Test Designer, Business Analyst. The automated tool person just needs to understand the specs and let them implement it. This sounds easy but of course there would be 1)framework design issues 2)lab design 3)source code check in-check out issues (especially if you have more than one automated scripter)

Overall I think the person to implement scripting needs to be good at defining a framework and setting standards (or following them). The individual Test Cases Scripts will only be as good as the reusable modules that emerge from a well defined test framework. The skills I would look for is UML notation. Ability to work with SBL and SBH files in Robot. (in XDE I don’t know much since I am in the middle of implementing it and defining framework). Someone who can work with patterns.

Best Practices is definitely working and reviewing artifacts like design specs and doing walkthroughs with developers. Ask a developer tasked with implementing a feature to setup a Design Review and walk through UseCase diagrams narrating out loud the actions and results of actions a customer takes. There you will find a lot of bugs and have a Test Designer make notes. Better yet (if you can) use a video camera and record a meeting to which you can come back to in few weeks or months and see where initial assumptions may have been incorrect.