Why do you keep Ignoring ’Intelligent No-Code Quality Automation’?

One thing is knowing about the technology enablers of ‘Intelligent No-Code Quality Automation’ (INCQA) tools and platforms – another thing is to put that in the context of business. In my previous blogs, ‘3^rd era of Test Automation’ didn’t quite cover the “full breadth” of business as it was predominantly about test automation. What business wouldn’t want to be “full breadth” driven by Automation, Autonomy, Business, Change, CI/CD, Process, Test, and RPA Intelligence?

This blog will focus on business pre-requisites, maturity, approach, framework, methodology, and processing of INCQA – i.e. for ensuring the business’ right platform/tools acquisition and successful implementation and operations.

Mitigating Business Pain-Points with ‘Intelligent No-Code Quality Automation’

I’m seriously concerned about an obvious lack of interest in the existing and technology enabling market of INCQA at many companies. This topic really should be top of mind among IT executives and management decision makers on investing in appropriate and value-adding automation tools utilization.

As a general evolution, I see clients struggle in their test automation efforts, building increasingly more test debt, occupying scarce code-skilled resources, and being accused of slowing down expected IT delivery cadence.

To mitigate all those pain-points, think out of the box and at many levels in a broader value chain. Think automation technology enablers into the context of team role task adjustments, new career paths, and required skillsets! Why not be highly competitive and become the business disrupting others with quality at speed and scale rather than the other way around!?

The As-Is and To-Be Thesis

To get disruptive, let me outline a ‘Sustainability Circle’ with connective concepts and aspects – I’ll commence that with an As-Is and a To-Be thesis.

As-Is – currently, automation reality is faced with this:

• Pre-requisites are about the ability of realizing an efforts capacity in form of a team of mostly code-skilled resources who are assigned efforts in developing and maintaining test automation suites of coded scripts – not exactly the most exciting challenge for scarce programmers who also lack the quality mindset of test analysts.
  
  
• Maturity is about whether an organization, a practice, and a culture are ready for doing “something new”. Quite likely many years ago, that ”something new” was equivalent to test automation maturity. Even today and for several reasons, test automation doesn’t seem to be sustainably done but often expires in 1-2 years. Maturity is also a matter of master and test data cleanliness, eventually fed by a sensibly data modeled architecture, high discipline, consumption, and cleansing.
  
  
• Approach, framework, methodology, and process are to assure sustainable success for and with the “something new”. Encompassing all four, 1-page authored and developed by me, Capgemini provides ’Sustainable Test Design Modeling’. Still though, the level of isolated test automation sustainability depends on utilization of tool technology enablers.

To-Be – where do we all want to be – and go ASAP?

• Pre-requisites are about the ability of realizing an efforts capacity in form of a team of mostly no-code skilled analysts who build up INCQA – a lot better helped by AI technology enablers in modern tools/platforms.
  
  
• Maturity is about whether an organization, a practice, and a culture are ready for doing “something new”. In near future – already tools/platform technology enabled – the “something new” (aka No-Code Automation Tooling Intelligence) is way broader covering Automation, Autonomy, Change, CI/CD, Process, Test, Performance Test, and RPA/IA Intelligence; even cohesively. Maturity will no longer be conditional to data, as that would be eliminated by a joint force of ‘Sustainable Test Design Modeling’ incl. adequate test data management and modern tools/platform technology enablers. Just here to repeat my mention of a sample enabler, for each release an entire system scan of the Application Under Test (AUT) can be done – and with that test/RPA flows no-code built or AI blueprint based autonomously built and executed test automation.
  
  
• Approach, framework, methodology, and process are to assure sustainable success for and with the “something new”. Encompassing all four, ’Sustainable Test Design Modeling’ is a part that (surprise!) compatibly fit into INCQA using an Eco ‘Systems Thinking’ mindset. As a no-code tech-savvy Test Analyst, that’s where I want to be joined by colleagues, while believing clients would be strategically better off focusing and being served there. We would also be welcoming no-code tech-savvy Business Analysts to taking part in this exciting journey! Only in our case-by-case demand, we would include code-skilled SDETs (Software Development Engineers in Testing) and other Developers – who would finally get the opportunity to be more fully focused on new development with built-in quality, while even letting others do automation of all kinds!

Are we in fact faced with the very classic psychological phenomenon of “fear of change” or yet deeper “fearing the unknown“? Well, one thing’s for sure: a tool/platform only has the potential to becoming a strategic success if it gets “wrapped in” sufficiently!

Business “Full-Breadth” Ecosystems Thinking

Compared to what I wrote about in prior blogs, let me add on some more or less “full-breadth” enablers that are either new or updated in below. Here I won’t namedrop partners (modern tool/platform vendors) with whom I work – i.e. that would be for my clients exclusively.

One platform offers all “full-breadth” enablers ‘Systems Thinking’ ecosystem cohesively, although with Autonomous Intelligence limited to self-healing tests and no self-automating automation. Another platform offers the latter but in turn doesn’t support testing desktop applications and only executes on 1 web or mobile AUT within any automation flow.
However, under near full code coverage tests/AUT/processes are self-generated and mapped – i.e. partially based on AI blueprints, AUT code and/or use by even real users in production. The usage approach is also – and even to a process mining extent – the case for the 1^st platform in mention, by which also connective RPA/IA is available.

A 3^rd platform claims itself being a value stream delivery platform. It too, scans entire AUT code and self-heals tests according to code changes. It also integrates to CI/CD tools like supposedly any of the other 2 platforms can or at least be brought to; by additional code.

Seen through my lens, the 3 platforms just elaborated on are currently the top-notch ones in No-Code Automation Tooling Intelligence! Underneath that, one may find other tools which – yet more traditionally test automation isolated – can enable in-sprint efforts for real Continuous Testing leading to real DevOps. Change Intelligence related, that includes one which enables code change based and test flow self-heal suggesting impact analysis.

I wonder who will reach out to me after this INCQA “one-man-riot” – feel free to do so as usual. Assumingly, Change Management is concerned too.