A Story: “Promised E2E Test Automation Training”

During my time working on contract at a major financial firm, a new QA Director was assigned to the position. He held a meeting for all testers (about 50, I think), as you know, the usual introduction and layout of future plans, …, etc. Towards the end of the meeting, he asked: “Any particular thing you like to see happening, please let me …”.

“We want training”, one voice interrupted him. A female tester raised and said, “I was told that there would be training in our development plan, but I never received proper real testing training. Attended one so-called useless ‘agile training’ with the project team”.

Many testers nodded. One male tester added, “As you just said then, we need to develop test automation capability. We heard of this a few times already in this company. I don’t know about others, but I haven’t seen any actions”. Many showed agreement, and a few clapped.

“We really want to learn test automation, real ones, I mean the hands-on type that I could put it use for my work quickly, not a dumping of theory and syntax”, another seeming senior tester added.

This new QA director was overwhelmed with the response. These testers were very quiet until training was mentioned. It was such a big contrast.

The QA director said, “Thanks for your feedback. I heard it loud and clear. Training, of course, is important. I was surprised to hear that, as there should have an annual budget for staff training. I promise that I will do something with this.”

A week after, an email was sent to all software testers from the QA director, asking each tester to reply by answering three questions:

1. What IT degree do you hold?
2. What kind of testing certification do you have, e.g. ISTQB?
3. What kind of training have you attended or would you prefer? (including resources, courses, or books you are interested)

Below are my replied answers:

1. Bachelor's and Master's degrees, both in Computer science
2. I don't have ISTQB certifications, but I was an honorary expert of a Testing Center / ISTQB Training, i.e. I train ISTQB trainers.
3. I have been running Web Test Automation Training for years (I included a flyer of one of my public training organized by a large recruitment agency). Also, I authored ten books on Test Automation & Continuous Testing.

The QA director's reply to my email: "Great, I will talk to you shortly".

There was never one-on-one talk between him and me on this matter. Of course, we met a few times and nodded. The QA director explicitly invited me to one meeting to discuss whether to use Cucumber. (I wrote down the part of that meeting in this article, "A Practical Advice on Rejecting Gherkin for Test Automation").

I clearly remember that day. After the uneventful meeting, at ~3:30 PM, one manual tester came to my desk and asked me to help implement a few of her manual test scenarios into automated tests. While she explained the test scenarios, I knew it was quite a simple task and largely repetitive. I told her, "OK, you can stay here and help me to verify". She stood there and watched me complete one in just a few minutes.

The manual tester was deeply impressed. I could see she was quite interested. I said to her, "That was Scenario 1. How about you do the others yourself". I got up and gave her my chair, grabbed an empty chair nearby to sit beside her.

She was, understandably, feeling uncomfortable. I assured her, "Don't worry, you watched me doing one, right? It was not that hard, wasn't it? You know the steps better than me. I will guide you".

Under my coaching, she managed to implement the second test case rather quickly (she was a fast learner). Then the third one, the fourth and the fifth. She was so happy.

I said, "It is 5 PM now. You could continue tomorrow. I will help you set up your machine for test automation so you can write automated tests on your computer".

At night, I received this LinkedIn message from her.

On the following day, word got out about her rapid mastery (not mastery, just learn enough to get the specific work done) of writing automated tests after just under 2 hours of training with Zhimin. The other manual testers, who initially had doubts about test automation, became intrigued and began showing interest. They quickly organized a half-day session for me to provide formal training.

An Agile Coach who worked on the same floor (though not in my team) heard and found it hard to believe. He decided to come and personally verify the situation. To his astonishment, he witnessed several manual testers (he knew) using TestWise to develop automated tests in a good spirit and occasionally seeking my coaching (I resolved issues quickly, < 1 minute, see this article for my coaching style). Later, he partnered with me to start promoting my training.

---

Back to the main story, up until the day of my departure from the company, the QA Director who had promised to offer "test automation training" to all testers had not reached out to me, and no provisions for any form of test automation training either.

Some readers might wonder, "Why didn't this QA Director not fulfil his promise with evidence of your training?". In an upcoming article, I will explain the possible causes.

---

The original article was published on my Medium Blog, 2023-08-23.