Story: “What is the Most Challenging in E2E Test Automation?”

Many software testers know the answer when they think deeply. However, in practice, they often neglect it and focus on trivial matters. Therefore, test automation failures.

This is one of the Stories series.

Table of Contents:
· The Story
· This is an Important Realization but often Neglected
· The Story of S Continues (in a few year's time)

The Story

In 2016, I worked in a large tech company (over 500 IT staff, considered large in my city) as a test automation engineer (contractor). One day, the newly-joined testing director, S, who is responsible for the overall testing process in the company, invited all software testers (~70) to a meeting.

In the meeting, after the usual introduction (his and then self-intro from everyone), S asked what test automation technologies were used in different teams. There were many answers:

• Micro Focus QTP
• Selenium WebDriver
  - Java
  - Ruby
  - C#
  - JavaScript
  - Python
• SoapUI
• Watir
• PhanomJS
• Ranorex
• WebDriverIO
• Protractor
• self-created ‘test automation framework’s

S and everyone (including me) were shocked by the long list. Apparently, there was a mess and lacked no planning and direction. Also, from the testers’ expression, it seemed test automation attempts had failed in all teams, except mine. (Check out the Definition of End-to-End Test Automation Success)

S wanted to soften the atmosphere (I think). He turned and wrote this question on the whiteboard, “What is the Most challenging in E2E Test Automation?”

S encouraged everyone to come up and write one on the whiteboard. So, many did.

• Lack of Training
• Not enough time
• The test framework/tool is not reliable
• The application does not provide IDs…