35-Word Functional Test Automation Strategy

Write 1+ Automated End-to-End Test for a user story; Add it to the regression suite; Run the regression suite daily and keep them valid! Starting on the first day and then every day!

A repost of my past article published on Medium in 2022

A couple of months ago, I received one call from a former colleague who is now working as an Agile Coach in government. He invited me to work on the test automation strategy there for three months. I answered: “I can just tell you now, for free”.

35-Word Functional Test Automation Strategy

Write 1+ Automated End-to-End Test for a user story;

Add it to the regression suite;

Run the regression suite daily and keep them valid!

Starting on the first day and then every day!

In my opinion, a functional test automation strategy is just that simple. I declined a possible 5-digit contract to create a lengthy document. Besides the 35-word end-to-end test automation strategy, I did offer hands-on implementation of it and then mentored others to take over. However, I did not hear back from this agile coach. Apparently, he was only interested in producing a document, rather than the implementation.

Back to 10 years ago, I would take the job for money, but now I am no longer young, I don’t want waste my time on useless stuff.

Before explaining the four-part strategy one by one, I want to point out that this strategy is applicable to pretty much all software projects.

1. Write 1+ Automated End-to-End Test for a user story

A user story is not “Done, Done” until it is covered in automated end-to-end UI tests. Some engineers might have read that from the classic Agile books. The logic behind is not hard to understand. Recently someone created a new fancy term “In-Sprint Test Automation”, which really is unnecessary, as it should have been always the case in Agile.

A user story is newly implemented and has been tested thoroughly (manual); it is ‘Done’, not ‘Done, Done’ yet. Later check-ins might break its implementation, and this happens a lot when lacking a prevention mechanism, i.e. protection of automated testing, the second ‘Done’.

2. Add it to the regression suite

While regression testing is a well-known concept, many software professionals have never experienced real regression testing, which cannot be done manually.

For more, check out my other article: “Regression Testing Clarified”.

3. Run the regression suite daily and keep them valid!