Why do CIOs fear “Test Automation” as much as they want it?

They wanted it but had too many bad memories.

Table of Contents:
· 1. Desire:  for “Release Early, Release Often”
· 2. Reality: real test automation engineers are extremely rare
· 3. Politics: it is hard to acknowledge being fooled
· 4. Solution: easier than you think

A couple of years back, I was working at a large local financial company as a test automation consultant. My first week's work brought some attention, and a test lead of the main division invited me to a meeting along with my manager. I heard in that meeting that the last thing the CIO wanted to hear was test automation. He said: “The last test automation attempt cost $2 million (mostly the human cost, plus some software license fees), with absolutely nothing to show for”.

I heard a similar comment about a departing CIO by an architect. “He wanted test automation implemented, and he trusted IBM’s Rational Functional Tester based on a Gartner report”.

It is not CIOs who don’t want “test automation”. They really want it. A CIO would dream about test automation success like the one in LinkedIn:

• “spiking profits” in a short time; “stock has more than tripled in less than two years”
• might be featured in Wired Magazine or CIO.com

However, they have been hurt too many times. Consequently, test automation attempts are often associated with “failure”, “expensive”, “fake”, and “embarrassment”.

By the way, this 2000 years+ old idiom story explained this behaviour, in a direct and interesting way.

To understand why, there are three factors:

• Desire: for “Release Early, Release Often”
• Reality: real test automation engineers are extremely rare
• Politics: it is hard to acknowledge being fooled

1. Desire: for “Release Early, Release Often”

CIO, even in a small company, means authority in technical direction. Most CIOs like to paint a big and better future on stage. “Release Early, Release Often” is certainly the most important part of a CIO’s perfect world.