GTAC 2009 - Achieving Web Test Automation with a Mixed-Skill

Google Tech Talk October 21, 2009 ABSTRACT Achieving Web Test Automation with a Mixed-Skills Team. Presented by Mark Micallef, BBC Future Media and Technology, at the 4th Annual Google Test Automation Conference, October 21st, 22nd, 2009, Zurich, CH Test automation is commonly perceived as a technical job, which should be done by technical people. In reality however, a considerable amount of non-technical activities contribute to the creation and maintenance of an automated test suite. Whilst test engineers are arguably competent at non-technical testing tasks, they may not be as competent or even as motivated as people who come from a manual testing background. Furthermore, in the context of most systems, especially web-based systems, automated testing would also benefit from people with primary skills outside of testing. These include developers, information architects, business analysts, customers and so on.This talk explores ways of harnessing the experience and skills of people with different backgrounds and channeling them towards the effective test automation of web-based systems. Bio: Mark Micallef has worked in software quality assurance and test automation for 8 years. Having spent time working in the security and finance sectors, he moved to London last year to lead a team of testers responsible for the BBC's News, Sport and Weather websites.