Encouraging management to scrap manual tests and do things the proper way

Question

Hi,

I am working in a project which is quite complex in terms of size (it's to make a web app). The first problem is that nobody is interested in any products which could really solve the problems surrounding the project (lack of time, no adjustments in timescales in response to ever changing requirements). Bare in mind these products are not expensive ( < $500 for a company making millions) and not products which require a lot of configuration (though the project needs products like that, such as build automation tools, to free up time).

Anyway, this means that testing is all done manually as documentation is a deliverable - this means the actual technical design, implementation and testing of the site suffers (are we developers or document writers? What are we trying to do here? are questions which come to mind). The site is quite large and complex (not on the scale of Facebook or anything like that), but doing manual tests as instructed to do so (despite my warnings) tells me this is not high quality testing and therefore not a high quality product to come out of it.

What benefits can I suggest to the relevant people to encourage automated testing (which they know I can implement)? I know it is possible to change resolution via cmd with a 3rd party app for Windows, so this could all be part of an automated build. Instead, I will probably have to run through all these permutations of browsers, screen resolutions, and window sizes manually. Also, where do recorded tests fall down on? Do they break when windows are minimised? The big problem with this is that I am doing the work in monitoring the test and the PC is not doing ALL of the work, which is my job (make the pc do all the work). And given a lack of resources, this clogs up a dev box - yes, used for development and then by me for testing. Much better to automate this for a night run when the box is free.

Thanks

Answer 1

Good luck to you. I screamed for all of this and I work for a billion+ company. We still perform manual testing (including regression testing). Automated tests are finally being instituted because some of the developers went out and got demos of some of the software you're describing and began configuring a framework.

Your best bet is to come up with an actual dollars and cents documented comparison between working with a product and working without a product to prove unequivocably to the management figures in charge of spending the money and designing the processes that the ROI is not only there but people who need to perform testing and/or change their existing processes will actually find their jobs a little bit easier.

Go grassroots. Talk to your team, get them on board. Talk to your business analysts, get them on board. Talk to any QA people you have and get them on board. When the villagers attack the castle with pitchforks and torches, you can bet that the wallets will open up and you'll be performing automated testing.

Answer 2

I would just try to automate as much as you can, whenever you can. I don't think you need to necessarily ask for permission to do things like this. Maybe your management doesn't think of these things, and often they won't see the benefit until you show them a great example.

Answer 3

Talking about money is usually the best way to get management attention, so here are a few suggestions:

• Estimate how long it takes you to do your current manual testing.
• Get a list of critical bugs that were found by customers - ideally with an idea of the impact cost (fixing a bug after release is always much more expensive than before), but it's usually good enough just to describe one or two particularly bad bugs. Your manual testing didn't catch these customer bugs, so this is a good way to demonstrate that your manual testing is inadequate.
• Come up with a pilot project where you automate testing a certain area of the product where bugs were found in production. Estimate the cost of the pilot project - doing a restricted pilot has the advantages of being easier to scope and estimate. Then compare the ongoing cost of repeatedly running the automation versus testing every release manually; after a few release you should break even on the cost of the automation tool plus the test development. Be careful picking the automation area - try to avoid areas like a complex UI that might change significantly between releases and thus require a lot of time to be spent on updating the automated tests.

Answer 4

Is it just that capital expenditures are difficult ? I've seen places where the time of existing employees is already spent, and therefore, essentially worthless in comparison to new purchases.

As for convincing managers, cost of manual regression tests versus cost to automate. If you are running lots of manual tests, this should be an easy win. If you aren't running the tests often, try for cost of a bug. However, in many companies, the cost for a bug isn't attributed to the development department, quality and the cost of bug may not be a strong motivation (in other words, quality is just about pride and ego, not actually what it costs).

Convincing developers...if they aren't already on board...electo-shock therapy ? If they aren't there, it's going to be an up hill battle.

Answer 5

Have been trying to similar on my current project... I can say there's another factor - time. There's a learning curve on automated tools and automated test development. The first release that is tested with automated tools will not be tested as quickly as it was manually, because the testers are learning the tools in addition to exercising tests. The second release will be much faster and every release after that will be faster still - but the first one will be a schedule hit, if not a cost hit.

The financial case is not too hard - over time, the project saves lots of money, as resources for repetitive testing are vastly reduced.

But the hard part to find a strategy that lets you get the tool into usage with a minimum of schedule drag on the first release that uses the test tool. Testing is always squashed at the end of the schedule, so it's the thing most sensitive to schedule stress. Anything you can do to show management how to reduce or remove the learning curve and automated test setup and installation time is likely to increase your chances of using the tool.