Have you ever looked at an automated test and wondered what it’s actually telling you, what is it testing? Or worse, felt like you’re adding more and more tests but somehow understanding less about the system? You’re not alone. As systems grow more complex and interconnected, and automation options continue to expand, the need for meaningful, focused testing becomes more important than ever. And that starts with understanding risk.
Too often, automation is built without a clear model of the system under test. We jump to a comfortable layer, very commonly the UI. We write tests that duplicate risks, are large, slow to execute, and provide little value. Without a clear understanding of what we’re testing, why we’re testing it, where we can test it, and how to design solid assertions. We’re doing ourselves and our teams a disservice and likely wasting time our teams can’t afford to lose.
In this talk, we’ll explore how to design targeted automated tests by starting with risk. We’ll discuss how to model your system under test, how to gather information to build that model, and how to design tests that are tightly focused on the risks that matter. You’ll learn about different types of automated tests and the assertions they can include, helping you build a suite that supports confidence and decision making, not confusion.
