When starting a new test automation endeavor, we frequently start with “What is going to make the biggest splash?” and “What will be our biggest bang for our buck”? This approach makes a lot of sense. Depending on how it’s approached, automation usually has a large upfront cost before realizing appreciable benefits and organizations want to recoup that cost as quickly as possible. The most obvious way to do that is to automate the most effort-intensive, yet automatable testing activity first.

As I said, this makes a lot of sense… but not necessarily in all cases.

Not all teams in all organizations are created equal.  Many teams understand the potential that automation can provide but some do not. Some teams have been burned by prior automation activities that were actual or perceived failures. Some teams or team members don’t have the experience to understand what is possible with current automation approaches and tools. Some team members may be concerned that they will lose their jobs to automation or AI. Many teams may have a combination of these situations, likely along with others not listed here. These are some of the mindsets that we must be sensitive to when introducing automation into a testing team or organization and deciding where to start with it.

What if the biggest bang for the buck, the highest automation priority, is with a team that has some of the above concerns? How should we feel about our chances for success? And not just success, but also the perception of success. In general, the perception of success in those teams is often “it’s perfect or it’s a failure”, “it does some of what we needed it to do, but not all of it so it’s a failure”, and similar all-or-nothing expectations. We may not feel too good about our chances of perceived success, as those teams define, it despite having added some legitimate business value.

Perhaps, instead of “the biggest bang” we should go for the “biggest bang with a high probability for success”. Sometimes, automating the thing that would give us the biggest positive impact also has the highest probability of failure, either actual or perceived. If, however, we work toward the biggest impact that will be appreciated, our efforts will provide value and possibly be perceived as more successful. We’re not gaming the system, per se, we are providing value to those teams that understand what incremental value looks like. I call these people and teams my “friendlies”.

Sometimes, the upside to this approach is “marketing” or “positive peer pressure”. I’ve worked with many organizations and companies where the skeptics observe what the early adopters achieve and then say, “Oh, why can’t we have that too?” The answer is that you can have something similar or perhaps more impactful than that, but there is a cost, there is a ramp-up time, and you need to buy in. Nothing is free.

I once worked with an organization that already had an automation implementation. Some of it was adding value, but some of it was not. In both cases, I was “the new guy” who “doesn’t understand how things are done here”; I had few friendlies, but “few” didn’t mean “none”. This being the situation, I didn’t immediately start with rehabilitating the “not adding value” portion of the automation. I started with people who were adjacent to the QA organization. They needed some ancillary tooling that was related to testing but was not what we would traditionally call test automation; this is the kind of thing I call automation assist. After creating a widget that saved these friendlies a few hours every week and provided them with information they didn’t previously have, they could advertise that “this guy knows what he’s doing” and “look at what we have now”. The rehabilitation effort was still difficult, but my friendlies acted as my champions saying, “Look what he did for us”.

In essence, put yourself, your teams, and your company in a position to succeed. Often, success is in the eye of the beholder, meaning starting an endeavor with friendlies can give us a higher chance of perceived and actual success. Find your friendlies!

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