Proof of Work for a Test Automation

Building test automation is like expensive Lego. After you finish building the death star, do you actually keep playing with it or is it placed on the mantel between your bowling ball and football trophies ?

Proof of Concept. Minimum Viable Product. Most Valuable Player. Whichever acronym we use, the context is pretty similar: Work matters, Results count. Are you making yourself useful.

We can measure Test Automation in many ways. We can measure the benefits of Test Automation in many ways. We can measure completion of the automation tasks in many ways. Measuring matters, but how about the results?

• It reduces time to execute a repeatable task.
• Can we test each change, each version and each release.
• Predictability is valuable.?
• Concise evidence is valuable.?
• Transferable knowledge is valuable.?
• Trust is valuable.

I want to challenge using only these observable measurements of running test automation, and add a historian layer that we can statistically benefit from. Proof of Work for a Test Automation. Agnostic of the solution, technology, application or people behind it.

• We can repetitively collect information using our automated capabilities.
• We can store our information in a central location for a statistical or behavioral analysis.
• We can evolve the ways how information is collected, processed, analysed and compared.
• We can share information which is collected under different conditions and discuss the behavioral evidence based on facts that are easy to understand. Pass or fail.
• We can utilize the information collected to create future products in a more concise and predictable way.
• We can keep record of failure scenarios.

Using your abilities of critical thinking, you will find which part in Proof of Work is useful for you in your context. Ideas and concepts are normally transferable between any domain from healthcare and spaceships to daily banking and agriculture.

Love statistics. Plot some graphs. Take a step forward. Go ahead for your leap of faith and leave the ordinary Pass or fail behind.

The author wishes to help the development environment hold the weather and reduce the number of disappointments experienced by millions of people in everyday life.