Test automation wants your manual testing job

Automation will leave many people without a job. 

I am not talking about test automation being a danger to many manual testing jobs. 

But about automation in a more general perspective. 

In Canada, in the next 10 - 15 years, up to 7.5 million jobs (out of 18) will be lost because of automation. 

This is what Huffington Post says and I agree with them. 

The key points of the article are below: 

• Canada faces the loss of up to 7.5 million jobs to automation in the next 10 to 15 years 

• Even people in high-income jobs won’t be spared, as automation will reduce the demand for doctors, lawyers and engineers, among others. 

• Autonomous vehicles are already on the road, robo-advisors are dispensing financial counsel and even lawyers and reporters are starting to see automation take over routine functions. 

• The study’s projections found a broad range in the number of jobs that could be lost — 1.5 million at the lower end, and 7.5 million at the high end. That amounts to between 8.3 per cent and 41 per cent of the 18 million jobs in existence in Canada today. 

So the demand for doctors, lawyers, engineers, reporters, etc will be reduced significantly. 

Should we hope that this will not happen to testers?

Stop being a one-trick pony! Stop focusing only on manual testing!

Manual testing will not go away. 

But it will not be anymore what it used to be. 

Like all things, testing changes and at a rapid pace. 

Companies still need manual testers but less than before. 

Normal testing is something that not only testers can do. 
A business analyst, business user or developer can do it as well. 

With so "many testers" available, companies hire outside testers if they are exceptional. 

Or multi-talented, with diverse skills. 


So do you want to continue to have a career in testing? 

Stop being a "one-trick pony" and stop focusing only on manual testing. 

Manual testing used to be sufficient for a successful career. 

You had a good "trick" and used it over and over. 

While you focused on your trick, everything around you changed and you did not notice. 

One day, you discover that the one-trick does not keep you employed. 

You rush then to learn more tricks and hope that you can do it fast.

Sadly it is too late because learning does not happen over night. 



This is something that applies to many other domains. 

Like sports. 
Take mixed martial arts, for example. 

One of the MMA women divisions had a champion for 3 years in Ronda Rousey who beat soundly (and in many cases under 1 minute) all her opponents. 

She did this with great judo skills. 

Ronda was a true "one-trick pony" since all her skills were only about judo. 

One day came when she fought a true boxer. 

Even with a lot of boxing training, she lost in a dramatic fashion. 

After her first loss, she took a year off and trained more in boxing hoping for a revenge. 

Next time she fought, she lost again but this time under 1 minute. 

What happened then?

While she was enjoying her "one pony trick", the world changed and she did not notice. 

When she realized that serious improvement was needed, it was a bit too late.

Want Success In Your Testing Career? Follow Iceland's Soccer Strategy

This is not an article about soccer.

It just uses soccer as a pretext.

Because good ideas are everywhere.

The European Soccer Championship is taking place these days.

It is in the quarterfinals phase with just 8 teams left:

1. Poland - Portugal
2. Wales - Belgium
3. Germany - Italy
4. France - Iceland

Iceland, in quarterfinals?

One of them is a big surprise: Iceland.

To get to quarterfinals, Iceland had 2 draws and 2 wins:

Iceland - Portugal 1 - 1

Iceland - Hungary 1 - 1

Iceland - Austria   2 - 1

Iceland - England 2 - 1

Iceland's opponents have the following populations:

Portugal - 10.4 million

Hungary - 9.8 million

Austria   - 8.4 million

England - 53 million

Iceland is one of the smallest countries in Europe with just above 300.000 people.

Soccer is popular in Iceland and was never too good.

It is a great achievement for the Iceland soccer team to qualify to the European Soccer Championship. 

To reach the quarterfinals of the championship is just incredible.

How did Iceland do it?

Was it a fluke, an accident, a stroke of luck?

Iceland beat England because his players were more motivated, had better execution and more desire.

But there is something else that explains the Iceland's success.

With such a low population, Iceland has a limited pool of players.

It has to do well with the players it has.

And that's what they did.





Iceland invested heavily in soccer

So they invested in training and more training.

Iceland took TV money from UEFA (Union of European Association) and invested it all in infrastructure, coaching and player development.

They build heated indoor fields all over the country (Iceland has very low temperature throughout the year and lots of snow) and helped hundreds of coaches get UEFA licenses.

There are so many UEFA licenses soccer coaches in Iceland that they have one for every 825 people.

Compare this with 1 for every 11.000 people in England.

There was no fluke in Iceland making it to the quarterfinal of the European championship.

The big  investment in soccer paid out big time.

Iceland no longer has a small soccer team in Europe but an important one.



And your point is, Alex?

As a tester or IT professional, if you want to have success in your career, you need to invest first.

Not in a house or in stocks.

Invest in yourself

Invest time, energy and money in your training.

Invest in growing your knowledge, your skills, your communication.

Expand your skills.

If you are a manual tester, learn programming and test automation.

If you know test automation, learn performance testing.

If you know performance testing, learn API testing.

Your knowledge and skills will mature as a result of the investment.

And the success will come shortly.

Questions From Testers - How To Better Structure My Testing Career

I receive from time to time questions from testers about problems they have. 

Most questions are about test automation but sometimes they are not. 

I answered recently an email from a tester that lives on San Francisco, USA who was wondering how to better structure her testing career. 



QUESTION


I am a QA with 5 years of experience but mostly manual testing. 

I am now comfortable with all the testing and how it's done and it comes easy. 

But the technical parts are challenging in part because I don't have a computer science degree. 

I took a certification course for QA in the local certified training facility. 

I was able to land a few really good contracts and have been successful. 

I am right now working for a company and I am not happy with their environment. 

So I have been looking for other positions and I noticed a trend that is so obvious. 

Automation is what everyone wants. 

I would like to get some advice on how to get started. 

I don't know any object oriented languages but would like to start with Java or Python. 

But in general i need advice on how to better structure my career progression in terms of knowledge that is necessary. 

If you could be so kind as to respond to this email I would be extremely appreciative. 

Look forward to you soon. 

Sincerely, 




ANSWER

Hi,

My opinion on career improvement is this. 

The future of the "pure" manual tester is slowly disappearing. 

Why am I saying this?

The most important tasks for a typical manual tester are to

• create test cases

• execute test cases

• log bugs

So manual testers create test cases. 

A business analyst is probably better at creating test cases than a tester. 

Business analysts can create business requirements too so hiring a business analyst may add more value than hiring a tester. 



Testers execute also test cases and log issues. 

Any business user can do this as well as a tester. 

Business users can also do their business tasks. 



So why use manual testers if their tasks can be absorbed by other users?


For these reasons, companies hire less and less manual testers because they can find easily replacements: 

1. business analysts
2. subject matter experts (business users)
3. developers 

Since many manual testers do not have high testing skills or good testing education, it is not difficult to replace them with non-testing resources. 


You may have heard about things like "testing is dead" or "testers are dead". 

They try to summarize the fact that just being a tester is insufficient. 

"Testers are dead" can actually be replaced with "Unprofessional testers are dead".

Professional manual testers will continue to exist.


To keep their job or find a new one, manual testers have to develop high testing skills on 

• scripted manual testing 

• exploratory testing 

• fast learning 

• testing with no requirements 

• high creativity 

• mind mapping 

The competition for these jobs is very high in most cases. 

All manual testers, including the great ones, will be in a crowd of average manual testers.



The future belongs to the technical tester.  



You can call him/her also software tester in development. 

This is a tester with many diverse skills about 

• programming (Java)

• how applications and systems work 

• test automation (Selenium WebDriver)

• performance testing 

• API testing

The more of these skills you have, 
The easier to find better, more interesting, challenging and paid better jobs. 


How do you get to be a technical tester? 

Start learning new things every day. 

Learning new things, every day, is the key. 

A few hours of learning per day will move you fast towards your goal. 

2 hours per day means 60 hours per month. 
This is 2.5 days per month dedicated only to learning new things. 
Which is almost a month per year. 

There are 2 approaches that you can take for your learning:

• fill gaps

• build knowledge step by step

Filling gaps works when you notice holes in your knowledge about a specific topic.

As soon as you find a gap, try filling it by reading around the topic.

When you want to learn new things (like programming), the building step-by-step works better.

You have in this case an empty space that needs to be populated with new knowledge.

Building a house is a good metaphor.

You build first a wall, brick by brick.

When the wall is up, check that it is solid and built correctly.

If the first wall is not good enough, do it again.

Then, continue with the second wall, third, until you have a full room.

The first room is difficult to build.

The second is far easier than building the first.

Third room is easier than building the second and so on.

There are 2 options of improving your education: 

1. do it by yourself 
2. with a coach 

When you do it by yourself, getting started is difficult. 

Learning will be challenging until you have a foundation of knowledge built. 

The challenges come from not knowing 

• what to read 

• how much to learn 

• what is the progression from one topic to another 

• what is useful

• what is not useful 

With a coach, all these are solved and you just need to put in the time and effort. 

In my opinion, learning a programming language and test automation is the best start for becoming a technical tester. 

In this process, you will get exposed to many other things that you need to know such as 

• XPATH

• HTML

• CSS

• unit testing

• how browsers work

• how HTTP works 

If you want to learn Java and Selenium WebDriver, I can help you with that. 

I can help you as well with 

1. creating practical test automation experience to use in your resume
2. getting noticed by companies and recruiters
3. getting ready for test automation interviewing
4. feedback on your tester resume

I have been helping manual testers do this for about 2 years now. 

It is not free but what you get is private lessons focused only on you and your learning. 

Hope this helps.



Have a question about test automation or testing in general?

Email me at alex@alexsiminiuc.com.

How To Gain More Practical Experience As A Manual Tester

Read Alex Sim's answer to What is the best online source to gain practical testing knowledge for manual functional testers? on Quora

The end of the QA manager?

Before going into the article, let me tell you a bit about myself.

I was QA manager between 2006 and 2012.

In 2006, my employer did not have a test team so I volunteered to create it.

Being a QA manager was an amazing opportunity.

It allowed me to learn many things that otherwise would be inaccessible to me.

In 2012,  I decided to work only non-management, hands-on testing jobs.

How is QA management doing these days?





MANY CHANGES HAVE BEEN HAPPENING RECENTLY IN THE MANAGEMENT FIELD

Companies make their management structures flat, with less levels between employees and top management.

Flat structures means less middle managers.

Or no managers in some cases.

See this article about management changes at Zappos (Amazon owned) as an example.

Some management tasks are automated.

Time planning and vacation management are being done through web applications.

The information dissemination to employees is facilitated by email, newsletter and web portals.

Planning, control and evaluation activities are distributed to non-manager employees.

All of these contribute to less activities allocated to managers.

In many cases, managers are seen as not very useful because they only manage.

They dont do anything else than management.

While this is not correct every time, it still leads to the perception that managers are expendable.

So when companies restructure, managers are impacted heavily.




WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR QA MANAGERS?

QA managers are managers too.

All changes already mentioned apply to them.

But recent changes in software development pressure even more the QA managers.

Applications are being developed, tested and deployed fast using incremental and iterative processes such as Agile.





AGILE TEAMS INCLUDE TESTERS AND QA ANALYSTS

The QA manager role makes sense when a QA department exists for providing services to development teams.

When using Agile instead of Waterfall-like processes, testers and QA analysts move from the QA team to development teams.

The testing is no longer done after all features are developed.

Code changes need to be tested fast even if application features are incomplete.

The testing is also less scripted and becomes exploratory and session-based.

The testers are no longer coordinated by the QA manager.

The scrum master and development manager take charge.



COMPANIES ARE USING LESS TESTERS OR NO TESTERS AT ALL

Some companies do their development without having testers at all.

Facebook for example.

Or Hootsuite who has 1 manual tester for more then 100 developers.

The developers create the code and unit test it.

They may even do the test automation for the new features.

After the developers finish their development and testing, business users do the integration testing for the product.

Think about it.

Why would a company need testers if the developers do unit testing and test automation and the business users look at the product as well?





LESS QA PROCESS ARE USED AND NEEDED

One of the QA manager's most important responsibilities is to set up and improve processes.

Agile does not put a lot of focus on having the best documentation.

It does not focus too much on processes either.

What is important however is having self-organizing teams of motivated and very capable individuals.




SO WHAT WILL HAPPEN WITH QA MANAGERS?

In companies that continue to use Waterfall development processes, QA managers will still survive, especially the good ones.

In companies that uses Agile or other fast iterative development processes, QA managers will become rare.

The more Agile becomes prominent, the less QA departments will be around.

Less QA departments, less QA managers.



WILL ALL QA MANAGERS BE IMPACTED EQUALLY?

There are 2 types of QA managers.

The first type is the "just-manage" QA manager.

He is highly skilled at management and very capable of managing testers.

But he does not know much about testing and technology.

His technical and development skills are very limited.

The second type of QA manager is very-hands on.

This is the "t-shape" type of QA manager.

He does management part time, is technical and development oriented.

He has broad skills (test automation, performance testing, web service testing), some of them very specialized.

I believe that many "just-manage" managers will disappear.


Their responsibilities will be taken over by development managers, hands-on QA leads and testers.

Agile does not require many managers, especially ones with no other skills than management.


The "t-shape" managers will survive.

When their QA management is no longer needed, they will join development teams as hands-on QA leads or senior testers.



WILL TESTERS AND QA ANALYSTS BE IMPACTED?

They will.

Having less managers will put more pressure on employees.

They have to do their work with less attention, less mentoring, less feedback.

No one will be around to tell testers what to do and how to do it.

With no managers around, testers should learn self management and become more autonomous.

They should learn to take charge on their goals and problems.

WHAT IS HAPPENING WITH MANAGERS IN OTHER INDUSTRIES?

Lets see what happens in the industry in recent years in Canada:

The number of managers is going down in every industry:

• Walmart Canada cut 200 head office jobs in 2014.

• After Tim Hortons merged with Burger King, it axed 40% of its middle managers.

• When Rogers Communications restructured its business recently, it let go several hundred middle managers

• It was a similar story at Bell Canada, when the new CEO cut 2500 management jobs.

In 1995, 10.4% of all jobs were in management positions.

In 2015, only 7.8%  are management jobs



NEXT

6 signs that your manual testing career is in danger
How to learn test automation from zero

6 warning signs that your manual testing career is in danger

Do you ever worry about the future of your testing career?

Are you asking yourself sometimes if you are doing the right things?

Do you have a feeling  that you should make changes in your testing job?

If the future of your testing career worries you, there are signs that can tell you if your job is in danger.



1. YOU HAVE DIFFICULTY FINDING A NEW JOB

The first 6 months in a new testing job are exciting.

You learn new things about the company, team, development process, applications to be tested.

But as time goes, the newness of things starts going away.

After a while, you know your job so well that you can do it with your eyes closed.

You decide then that it is time to move on.

So you try to find another job.
And try and try again.

Sometimes you get invited to interviews, other times you dont.

A few months pass since you started to look for a new job and you are still looking.

Not finding fast a new job is a signal that something is not going well with your testing career.

Why cant you find another job?

Maybe because ............



2. SCRIPTED TESTING IS ALL YOU KNOW

Most testers are manual testers.

This is their speciality:
to execute manual functional testing for web sites, mobile apps, windows applications.

Manual testing was very popular until recently because:

• users demanded high application quality so companies hired manual testers 

• the SDLC process was a waterfall variation with phases that were more or less distinct and sequential (gather requirements, development, testing, release)

• developers did not do much testing so testing belonged to manual testers 

Testers created detailed test cases while the developers created the code.

After the development phase ended, the testers executed the test cases and reported their discoveries to the development team.

The present and future of manual testing changed.

Due to the Agile processes, the focus is now to develop features quickly and deploy them frequently. 

Creating requirements, development and testing happen fast and sometimes in parallel.

There is no time for putting together detailed requirements and test cases.

The tester needs to be able to learn fast the new features, create a high level testing checklist, test and report the issues.

And do this fast and continuously.

If your testing is still based on detailed test cases, this is another signal that you may have problems in your future career.

But having only functional testing in your toolbox may still be sufficient for a rewarding testing job.

If you dont have the next problem.



3. YOU ARE NOT DOING EXPLORATORY, CREATIVE TESTING 

Not having time for creating test cases requires that you learn and test fast.

And find important bugs too.

Developers are much more involved in testing now and use unit testing frameworks (like JUNIT) for testing their code.

The unit tests catch many application issues reported in the past by manual testers.

So the manual testers need to do much better testing and find valuable issues not caught by unit testing. 

To test fast, without test cases and find very good bugs requires a different testing approach.

The tester should use exploratory testing instead of scripted testing, be creative, think outside the box, behave as a user.

Use lateral thinking and become proficient with exploratory testing tours.

Being very good at exploratory testing is great if you can find the next job.

But it is often difficult to differentiate yourself from other manual testers, maybe not as good as yourself.

If you don't stand out from other testers, you may not be able to find another job so your testing career will suffer.

But what if your skills are just good at exploratory testing?

This is the third testing career warning: not standing out and not having great exploratory testing skills.

It is difficult to stand out when ....



4. YOU KNOW VERY WELL ONLY ONE TYPE OF TESTING 

I asked many times IT recruiters what type of testers are companies hiring.

The answer was very consistent.

Most companies want testers that can wear multiple hats, are technical, can do test automation, know a programming language.

And they can cook spaghetti and speak italian.

Just kidding.

Why are companies so demanding?

Because the more things a tester knows, the more value he adds to the project.

If the tester can not only test but also provide customer support, participate in code reviews, write test automation scripts, create unit tests, is he more valuable than another tester than just does functional testing?

Much more valuable.

Being a versatile tester is not only more valuable for the company but also for your career.

You can target not only manual testing jobs but also test automation, performance testing, api testing, hybrid testing roles too.

If you focus on one testing type only, your future testing career may be in danger.

But, how can you find the time to learn all these new skills?

And who will provide the training?

And what should you learn?



5. YOU ARE NOT TAKING RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR TRAINING 

No one will provide you the training for growing your career except yourself.

You may know this joke:

the person that can solve all your problems is the one that looks at you when you are in front of the mirror.

Few companies offer training programs to testers these days.

And if they do, the courses are for skills that the company needs which may be different from what the tester needs.

So, to keep your career afloat, you need to take responsibility for

• what you learn

• how you learn

• how to find the time for learning

6. YOU ARE KEEPING THE SAME TESTING JOB FOR A LONG TIME 

This is the last warning that your testing career may be in danger.

There are companies out there where you can work for a long time and have a very rewarding experience.

If you can move between projects or departments or even better if you can change job responsibilities often, there is no need to change your job. 

All these changes will keep you improving and learning.

But, if you work on the same product for a few years, do the same testing and within the same team, chances are that you stopped improving yourself a long time ago.

And if there is one thing that shows that your career may not have a future, this is the one:
you are not learning new things every day.