"Don't reinvent the wheel." Sound familiar? It's a familiar adage that, at first glance, seems like good advice. After all, why waste time replicating something already perfected?
However, upon closer inspection, you’d discover that the wheel is, ironically, one of history's most frequently reinvented inventions. Today we use wheels made of alloy, chrome, or steel and non-granite disks, with millions of variations on the wheel. This re-invention was required to cater to the changing requirements in the industry.
Mastering Testing, similarly, demands constant reinvention and change from us. As an experienced test automation engineer with over a decade in the field, I am completely convinced that the path toward mastering testing lies in continuously reinventing ourselves regarding how we think of testing, its process, tools, or techniques.
This doesn't mean we should disregard established practices or neglect to learn from them; rather, we should build upon this foundation.
Whether you're a test engineer, developer, agile project lead, or engineering manager, you've likely encountered this challenge at least once in your career. Seasoned professionals often find that previously reliable testing methodologies no longer yield the desired results for certain projects.
As automation engineers, we constantly face new changes, technologies, environments, and users' needs. A perfectly crafted, well-working testing strategy that worked flawlessly a few years ago might be obsolete or inadequate today. Reinventing the testing process enables to us adapt to newer challenges, optimize existing strategies, and improve the quality of our work.
Moreover, the reinventing process develops a much deeper understanding of testing methodologies; it is learning by doing or experimenting with its probable outcome, as opposed to merely learning theories.
The best analogy I can think of is a mechanic. Just as a great mechanic learns to take things apart, ponder how they work, and then put them back together in novel ways, as test engineers, we need to reassemble testing ideas, techniques, and processes in different ways.
Reinventing the way we test also helps speed up delivery with enhanced quality. From a business perspective, if we follow optimized strategies and are ahead in the competitive market, we will own a bigger share of the market.
Let's consider an example. A decade ago, testing was a time-intensive process, requiring significant manual effort and human resources. Forward-thinking companies that have reinvented and inculcated evolving testing strategies—such as automated tests and integrated build pipelines—have significantly reduced human intervention. They sped up their delivery cycles and frequency of releases, allowing them to gain higher customer satisfaction and higher retention, expanding their market share.
In the early stages of our learning process, our reinvented tests, ideas, techniques, or documents may not be perfect. This is expected. The key is to keep our minds open, observe other testers, study, and continuously evaluate the outcomes of our experiments.
Even after years of experience, we should still be reinventing, reworking, and challenging our assumptions. It's a journey of constant learning and improvement, but it comes with its challenges.
Let's examine some of the pitfalls we may come across while challenging our traditional test mechanisms.
You must remember that reinvention isn’t about throwing away everything old. The objective should be improvement, striking a balance between established strategies and new explorations. Here are some practical approaches to consider in your reinvention process:
In my project, we decided to move from Selenium to Playwright. Playwright has built-in capabilities to support auto-waits and offers seamless support for single-page applications, which we needed for our testing process.
By embracing reinvention and new ideas, you can transform yourself from an ordinary tester into a testing evangelist. Your transformation will inspire your team and organization to adopt world-class strategies, cutting-edge tools, and innovative testing processes. Perhaps you can invent the next groundbreaking testing technique.