However, test automation bears its own challenges. According to the WQR, organisations are currently lacking the key skills and budget required to grow and maintain effective test automation. For 38%, test automation is the area where they face the greatest skill needs [1]. This is reflected in the WQR, which finds that only 15% of all testing is currently automated [1]. Why is this the case for something of such high priority?
“De-skilling” test automation can help resolve this challenge, enabling collaboration between those with and without deep coding skills. Test automation must be lightweight, re-usable and easy to apply, in order to help organisations ease its implementation enterprise wide.
De-skilling Automation
Test Automation is a complex and demanding process, often relying on manual scripting and skilled engineers. In fact, testing at 40% of organisations is supported by specialised quality engineering teams [2]. Despite this, automation levels remain low, while 47% of organisations declared testing as the area most likely to cause delays in development [3]. For automation to be embraced, it needs to be “de-skilled”, shifting towards ease of use and re-usability.
The rise in popularity of low-code development should have coincided with the rise of low-code automation platforms. However, these platforms must retain the flexibility of coding and the ability to test bespoke systems quickly and rigorously. Collaboration and balance are needed, enabling those with and without coding skills to test as quickly and rigorously as possible.
Test Modeller, a flow-based test automation tool, reduces the complexity and labour of test automation. It allows non-coders to generate highly sophisticated test scripts, while maintaining all the flexibility of coding. Test Modeller uses BPMN-style flowcharts that are already familiar to BAs and system designers. Deep coding knowledge is not necessary to rapidly build flowcharts in Test Modeller, before generating comprehensive test cases, scripts, and data. The flows themselves then become re-usable, further accelerating test automation creation.
Test Modeller not only de-skills automation, it also accelerates test creation, provides matching test data, and allows users to maintain test scripts in a few clicks. This is especially important when 68% of organisations reported that designing and maintaining meaningful test cases is extremely challenging [2]. Generating test cases, scripts and data from central flowcharts not only automates these time-consuming processes, it also allows optimisation to target testing where it matters most before a release.
Watch Test Modeller in 2 Minutes: Design, Develop and Test Better Software: