Agilimation: Test Automation in Agile Methodology – Part I

A lot of organizations claim to be doing Agile development, but it’s often difficult to pin down exactly what they mean by that claim.

I remember reading the Manifesto for Agile Software Development and thinking, “Well, that’s one way to get managers and bean counters off your back!” But if you look at the actual Principles, there are a few that make a test automation scripter cringe:

Welcome changing requirements, even late in development.

So that complicated business process component I created in QTP yesterday won’t work tomorrow, and that’s OK??!!??

Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.

So now I have less time to develop my scripts which can change as often as the requirements? Why do I suddenly feel dizzy? (No, my anti-static strap isn’t too tight)

Once the fear wears off, there are advantages to developing test automation in an Agile environment. We will explore those in a follow-up article.

Hey, ‘Agilimation’ sounds better than ‘Autogility’…doesn’t it?