TestGuild Automation Podcast

Many test teams have undergone major changes over the past few years. With more and more companies moving towards Agile and DevOps best practices, companies are scrambling to understand how the role of testers fits into this new way of developing software. In this episode, Perze Ababa shares with us his experience in running a testing organization in the 21st century, and discusses the tools and techniques that can help anyone improve their testing efforts.

Are you sick of having to build yet another test automation framework from scratch? I think too many test engineers resort to building automation solutions from scratch without first investigating what other solution might be out there. Why reinvent the wheel? In this episode Pekka Klärck, the creator of the Robot Framework, talks about how it might be just what you’re looking for in an open source test automation framework.For those of you who don't know, the Robot Framework is a generic test automation framework for acceptance testing and acceptance test-driven development (ATDD). It has easy-to-use tabular test data syntax, and utilizes the keyword-driven testing approach. Its testing capabilities can be extended by test libraries implemented either with Python or Java, and users can create new, higher-level keywords from existing ones using the same syntax that is used for creating test cases.

Paul covers many things in this episode, including hunting down elusive, intermittent issues that can cause your automaton to randomly fail due to actual product defects. You’ll also discover how to socially engineer your test automation efforts with empathy and conversations in order to build relationships that will help your automation thrive. This episode is chock-full of good test automation practices, so listen up!

I feel that test data management is one of the biggest challenges to creating reliable test automation across multiple environments. One solution I’ve been hearing more and more about is virtual data. So this episode is all about test data management using data virtualization.Discover how virtualization can revolutionize the way you approach all your DevOps and test management efforts with Kyle and Brett from Delphix.

If you're not growing you're dying? My question to you is which one are you? Don't be a factory worker tester. The key to success in any technology career is the love of learning and constantly working on your skills. In this episode Mike shares cores concepts like Visual Validation Testing. Metric and Leadership skill and much, much more to equip you to become the best next generation tester you were meant to be.

Don't let your testing efforts fall behind — its time to get ready for the new year. In this episode, I share my insights about upcoming trends in testing gleaned from my popular TestTalks podcast interviews. Discover the skills, best practices and frameworks you need to know to stay employable in a changing dev/test world.

Appium is a cross-platform, open-source, mobile UI automation framework. It allows you to write UI tests for your mobile apps, Android iOS and some other OSs.In today’s episode we’ll be talking with the creator of Appium, Dan Cuellar. Discover why Dan developed Appium and how it can help you create mobile-based automation awesomeness.

One of the biggest problems with learning Selenium is all the various information you need to piece together in order to get started. It’s easy to get frustrated and filled up information overload and end up not making any progress with learning Selenium. Have you ever wished there was a quick jump-start guide that could get you started with test automation without all the bells in whistles, but a concise good practices approach to learning Selenium? Well this episode is for you as we speak with Dave Heaufffner about his new book The Selenium Guidebook – Java edition.

This being the first episode of 2016, I thought it would be a good idea for us to do a testing tune-up. I love automation and testing tools, but I think we can sometimes be easily distracted by cool automation scripts or a sweet new testing tool we’ve discovered rather than focusing on why we’re doing what we are doing and making sure that it’s actually helping our team to create quality software.In this episode Christin will teach us a simple, four-step framework that will help us focus on the things that matter. She will offer some additional tips to make our 2016 testing efforts awesome.

Happy Holidays! I'm taking the last week of December off, but just wanted to THANK YOU for listening to Test Talks in 2015 and share some quick plans for 2016 to make Test Talks even better.

Today’s episode is going to be a little bit different. Since we’re nearing the end of the year, I thought I’d share with you the Test Automaton Playbook presentation I gave at the Øredev Conference in Sweden this past November.I’ve had the privilege of interviewing some of the biggest names in the testing and automation field in 2015, and I think my presentation summed up all the lessons and good practices I’ve picked during those interviews.

In this episode, we’ll talk with Scott Nimrod about Software Craftsmanship and how to take your development and testing efforts to a new level. Discover some modern testing techniques that can really improve the quality of your unit testing and automation testing efforts.Scott’s enthusiasm and hustle around self improvement and making development efforts awesome really shine through in this can’t-miss episode for folks that are serious about testing and development.

In this episode we’ll talk with Mark Collin, author of Mastering Selenium WebDriver. Mark will share with us how to create an extensible test framework, as well as how to write clear, simple, readable and reliable tests that perform complex test automation tasks. If you’re a Selenium automation engineer and are ready to take your Selenium efforts to the next level, this episode is a must-listen.

Virtualization, Cloud Deployments and Cloud-Based Tools have challenged and changed performance testing practices. Today’s performance tester can summon tens of thousands of virtual users from the Cloud in a few minutes at a cost far lower than the expensive, on-premise installations of yesteryear. These newer environments can also cause us to struggle to understand our performance results and have to puzzle out the essential message in each.In this episode, Eric discusses strategies for engaging with these new contexts, performance testing them effectively. He also explains how to better interpret performance test result and create better reporting.

Projects can fail for many reasons. Some fail because they test the wrong things. Others fail because they test too much. In this episode Todd H. Gardner, an enterprise consultant and founder of TrackJs, shares his many years of development experience in testing atrocities (AKA terrible testing) and what we can learn from them. You’ll come away questioning your own testing. So let’s forget about our long-held testing dogmas and start doing a better job of testing the right things in our software.

In this episode, Andy from the podcast Testing Bias shares some insights from his years of testing experience. You’ll discover the shift in testing we all need to be aware of, as well as which skills you’ll need in the coming years. We’ll also touch on a few hot topic issues like Schools of Testing as well as, “Can developers do testing?”

In this episode we’ll be talking with Vladimir Khorikov, author of the Pluralsight course Automating UI Tests for WPF Applications. Discover how to create a maintainable, automated test suite for your WPF application using the open-source framework White. Vladimir will guide us through the process of building a White automation framework and share some of his tips and best practices along the way.

In this episode, we’ll hear about a real world automation success story from Neil from Physicians Mutual. Neil shares the steps he took to implement a successful, large-scale automation effort for his company. So roll up your sleeves and get ready to learn some actionable best practices that you can use in your own automation efforts.

When it comes to performance testing, sometimes the best thing you can do is Just Do It. With open-source performance testing options, it’s never been easier to get started. And the best place to start is in CI. In this episode, Michael Sage from BlazeMeter shares which tools and techniques you should use to get started with your Continuous Performance testing efforts. You’ll discover how to get it done.

I’ve been involved with test automation for over 15 years, and I’m amazed that to this day there are misconceptions about test automation that most managers are not even aware of. In this episode you will discover my top 5 things your boss probably doesn’t understand about test automation, and why you need to educate him or her ASAP.

How can we deliver what we’ve made to our customers as early as possible, as well as get faster feedback from our product users? To achieve this, more and more companies are moving toward a continuous delivery process. How does automation fit into this paradigm shift? In this episode Sahas, shares tons of real world experience with us about how to make our CI/ automation testing efforts awesome.

We are currently living in what some are calling the API economy. With mobile app development, modern DevOps practices and newer architecture like micro-servers, API’s are everywhere. They might even be in your shower. So it’s important that we have a process in place to help us monitor and test all our APIs. In this episode, Neil Mansilla, head of developer relations at Runscope, shares with us how to take our API monitoring and testing efforts to the next level.

Today we’ll be test talking with Brian Okken, author of Python Testing with UnitTest, Nose & Pytest, and host of the new Python Test Podcast. Get ready to discover some cool Python testing techniques, including how to use Python for embedded testing and more.

Want to take your mobile app development and testing CI efforts to the next level? Does it take you a long time to deploy your apps? Ship.io can help. Ship.io was developed specifically for Continuous Delivery or native iOS and Android mobile apps to help you easily build, test, deploy and ship quality apps faster.Tim Rosenblatt, an engineer at Ship.io, shares with us how to improve our mobile app CI efforts.

Not sure if you should test your mobile app against a simulator, emulator or real device? Testing against a real device would be optimal, but do you really have the budget or time to set up your own mobile testing lab? No worries SauceLabs just got even better with their announcement of a new feature that allows customers to test their mobile apps across the full spectrum of simulators, emulators and real devices using one platform as part of their DevOps workflow. Lubos Parobek, Vice President of Product at SauceLabs, shares with us his unique insight on all the benefits of easily testing mobile apps in SauceLabs’ cloud.

Is QA dead? You might be surprised by the answer.Today we test talk with Jess Sussna, author of Designing Delivery: Rethinking IT in the Digital Service Economy, who shares with us his view of Cybernetics and 21st century IT, and what happens to QA in a DevOps world.The book covers how service quality is about more than designing capabilities, but is about making -- and keeping --promises to customers. In this episode you’ll learn how to make IT a full partner in the ongoing conversations you have with your customers, and why QA is an important part of this transformation.So listen up and discover the ways in which QA is more important than ever, as well as how QA test engineers will actually thrive in the years to come.

In my experience, one of the most significant improvements to my team’s automation code has been due to the inclusion of all our test artifacts in our code reviews. Also -- if you’re a developer doing code reviews, you should be involving your QA resources to help gain fresh perspective for things that you may not have thought of. Everyone on your development team benefits from code reviews, because the sooner bugs are caught the better it is for everyone. Today we’ll be Test Talking with Justin Collier, the product owner of the SmartBear peer code review tool Collaborator. Justin shares his experience in helping teams succeed with productive code reviews. In this episode you’ll discover the secrets to conducting awesome code reviews for all your coding efforts (including automation code).

With more and more companies making the shift-left in their development process there is increase pressure on development teams to be able to run their automated test quickly and reliably. Peter Kim shares with us his modern automation approach that allows his team to quickly scale their test coverage against rapidly changing applications with minimal refactoring and code changes to their test scripts. In this episode you'll discover the secret to building automation frameworks that scale.

In this episode you’ll discover how to orchestrate your testing/Agile efforts to run in automation harmony with QASymphony’s qTest platform as we Test Talk with Kyle Cochran, VP of Product at QASymphony.Test Management is a key tool in any Agile automation effort in order to succeed in today’s fast-paced development environment.Kyle shares why he believes test management can help teams collaborate and enhance their test automation/development efforts.

Ross, the author of the Pluralsight course Introduction to Wireshark shows us how Wireshark can help bridge the gap between network engineers, developers and testers to ensure we are developing high-performing, secure software application awesomeness.In this episode you’ll discover how to use WireShark to attack hard to find bugs!

This episode is all about how HP's new test tool LeanFT can help you and your company with your Shift-left efforts. LeanFT was developed to handle the modern automation demands of things like continuous testing and dev-ops. You'll discover the top features of LeanFT and how to accelerate your LeanFT scripting efforts

In this episode you’re going to find out how to test your software better, easier and faster with Gojko Adzic, author of Fifty Quick Ideas to Improve your Test.Gojko reveals some of his favorite ideas from his book, all of which can be applied to many different contexts -- from small web start-ups to the world’s largest companies. This episode will improve your team members’ collaboration on defining, creating and executing your tests. Bonus: Listen all the way to the end to learn how to get 50% off a copy of Fifty Quick Ideas to Improve your Tests!

How many of you have been on projects where you ended up building the wrong thing? Or worked for a company that tried a process that was currently in vogue, only to see it fail? And of course, we’ve all felt the frustration of finding all types of bugs in our software that cause us to delay releasing it.How can we reduce these common risks associated with developing software?Matt Heusser, founder of Excelon Development -- a one-stop shop for software testing and training -- and the author of the book How to Reduce the Cost of Software Testing will share with us some context-driven principles to help guide us around some of the risk roadblocks in our software development process.

Do you work for a large enterprise company and are struggling to create an automation strategy that will meet all the needs of your company? Want to know what the number one factor people forget when getting started with test automation? In this episode we're going to pick the brain of Kalayana Rao Konda, President of Gallop -- one of the largest companies that specialize in providing testing services. Kalyan shares with us his deep insight gleaned from his years of automation experience, as well as his company’s extensive experience implementing hundreds of successful automation efforts around the world. You will discover what it takes to implement your own successful test automation strategy.

Today, mobile apps must meet rigorous standards of reliability, usability, security, and performance. However, many mobile developers have limited testing experience, and mobile platforms raise new challenges even for long-time testers. In this episode the Author of Hands-On Mobile App Testing – Daniel Knott shares his end-to-end blueprint for thoroughly testing any iOS or Android mobile app. http://www.testtalks.com/59

One of the biggest challenges I’ve seen for large teams all across the globe is a lack of collaboration. In this episode you’ll discover how to break down some of the barriers that separate your project management group, development group, business, and especially your QA group, and ensure that those teams are working as a unit with Sanjay Zalavadia, VP of Client Services at Zephyr.

How often have you found yourself doing a long, manual, repetitive administrator task on a Windows box and thinking that there has to be a better way? Well, you’re right -- and PowerShell may be exactly what you’re looking for. Don’t be a “click next” admin! Listen to Adam Bertram, author of the Pluralsight PowerShell Toolmaking Fundamentals course, as he shares a bunch of tips on using PowerShell to automate the drudgery of some Windows-based tasks.

Discover new and existing functionality to make your Sauce Labs automation tests even more awesome. Steve Hazel, CTO and co-founder of Sauce Labs, shares his deep development knowledge of how to make your tests run reliably in Sauce. Steve also reveals some cool new UI features recently added to Sauce Labs to make your Sauce automation experience even better.

In this episode, discover my top takeaways from this year’s HP Discover conference, and get a sneak peek of the new HP automation tool that is going to blow your mind.

In this episode, Al Sweigart shares how easy it is for someone with little-to-no programming experience can get started automating some of the most boring tasks that fill our days. Whats great about this is you’ll find automation can be used for much more than your typical end-to-end functional testing scenarios. So if you’ve struggled in the past to learn a programming language for test automation, today you’re going to discover it’s much easier to get started than you probably think.

There is nothing worse than sour BDD. You know -- the kind that is unreliable, unreadable and unmaintainable yet still need to be maintained somehow. Discover a better way with Seb Rose, the author of The Cucumber for Java Book, as he shares some of the best ways to create robust, sweet BDD (Behavior Driven Development) that will leave you satisfied and your customers delighted.

As the dawn of the Internet Of Things Era begins testers and developers need a better way to test the functionality of their growing API, cloud based software applications. One of the new tools/techniques developed for this purpose is the concept of Service Virtualization. Find out why Service Virtualization is so important and why you need it to have confidence that your modern application will work as expected in the wild.

My mother passed away in December after fighting a progressively debilitating disease for many years. The past months have been a time of reflection for me. My mother taught me many things about life, instilling principles that have made me not only a better person but also a better test automation engineer. In this episode, I’d like to share a few of those things with you.

This is the 50th episode of Test Talks, and I couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate than to feature an interview with the CEO of TestTalks’ Exclusive Sponsor, Sauce Labs. In this episode you’ll discover why Sauce Is Boss as I speak with the new CEO of Sauce Labs, Charles Ramsey about his vision for Sauce Labs and how Sauce's awesome products and services can help you succeed with all your testing, automation & CI efforts.

Protractor is an automated testing framework for testing AngularJS applications in the browser. In this episode you'll discover all the benefits of using Protractor to test your AngularJs application as we speak with Nate Taylor, author of the PluralSight course's Introduction to Protractor and TDD as a Design Tool.

Want to know what a bucket of bottlenecks is? You’ll find out today as we talk with PerfBytes’ Mark Tomlinson. Not performance testing your application can be dangerous. Don't be left singing the performance testing blues after being featured on the PerfBytes’ News of the Damned. In this episode the Performance Sherpa, Mark Tomlinson who has over 20 years of testing experience, helps guide those new to performance testing over the rough terrain of getting started with their performance efforts -- no matter how daunting the task may seem. So get ready to bring your performance testing efforts to a whole new level!

Can automation perform actual testing? What’s the difference between test automation and automation in testing? Discover a mind-shift that will help you improve your testing efforts and take your automation to the next level. In this episode, your friendly tester will free you from the common misunderstandings and myths of test automation and leave you smiling. Check it out!

The Apple Watch is coming. Are you ready? With the release of the much-anticipated watch happening in less than a month, I thought it would be fun to talk about iOS testing. This episode should help you get up-to-speed with iOS testing and start thinking about how you’re going to test Apple Watch apps. Andy Obusek is an iOS mobile developer at the popular Email marketing firm AWeber, and he shares some of his favorite IOS tips and tricks with us.

For the past few years I've been trying to promote the idea that not every automation test should be a UI test, and have been focusing more on the types of tests that can be performed below the UI, like API testing. With the rise of the Internet of Things, this type of headless testing is only going to become more popular. One of the tools I use all the time for REST-based API testing is rest-assured. In this episode, we’ll talk to the creator of the open-source tool’s REST-Assured, Power Mock and Awaitility, Johan Haleby.

Have you ever wondered how testing is done at big companies like Microsoft? Curious to know what it takes to succeed with testing and automation across a huge enterprise that has bunch of different products and technologies? Alan has seen it all, and shares his years of testing wisdom. Your ears will be ringing from all the test automation awesomeness knowledge bombs Alan will drop on you in this episode.