12 Getting ready for BDD automation
This chapter covers
- Taking the risk out of BDD automation
- An overview of software design patterns
- An overview of BDD execution framework features
- Key principles of BDD automation and the SUITABLE mnemonic
Almost all software teams aspire to automate as much of their testing as possible. In practice, we have found that many test automation initiatives fail to deliver the expected benefits – faster feedback; increased coverage; reduced effort – and sometimes make matters worse by introducing new overheads, such as daily debugging of flakey automation. In this chapter we will see the WIMP team mitigate the risk of adopting BDD automation by treating it as a series of experiments.
There will always be some foundational learning needed when adopting a new way of working, which is why this chapter provides a whirlwind introduction to design patterns and BDD execution framework features. We also introduce the SUITABLE mnemonic that helps teams remember our eight key principles for BDD automation.
12.1 Proof-of-concept
The Where Is My Pizza (WIMP) team feels comfortable with their adoption of the Discovery and Formulation practices – and they are already seeing the benefits in their requirements and specifications. However, the team doesn’t yet feel confident enough to automate every scenario that they formulate.
It is not unusual for teams to feel this way. Common challenges that we have observed include: