This talk was given in GeoSTQB webinar on June 15, 2020. Several strengthening trends are discussed. Testing careers are evolving – there are entries into testing and out of testing. Testing is becoming a role for everyone. ISTQB, as the world’s largest testing association, provides guidance into different testing activities, supporting testing careers. Another influential aspect is the on-march of agile teams, where testing is a whole team responsibility. Then there is test automation - that is an ever-increasing domain within testing. Test automation is not taking tester jobs away, but it is transforming them, giving tools for testing. Then there is DevOps – placing testing in the middle of a largely automated delivery pipeline. There is a place for manual testing, too, but test automation has a big meaning here. Finally, Artificial Intelligence is transforming all IT task, including testing. Automation of activities can now or soon be done in a scale that wasn’t possible earlier. Do we have reason to fear for our jobs? No – AI is best placed as yet another aid for the increasing demand of good quality in software, that is more complex than ever. Soon, we couldn’t cope without AI.

1. Future of Software Testing
GeoSTQB webinar
Kari Kakkonen

2. • ROLES
• Knowit Oy, Director/Quality and Competences, Lead
Consultant, Trainer and Coach
• Secretary of ISTQB Executive Committee
• Treasurer of Finnish Software Testing Board (FiSTB)
• Children’s and testing author at Dragons Out Oy
• ACHIEVEMENTS
• Influencing testing since 1996
• Ranked in 100 most influential IT persons in Finland
(Tivi magazine)
• Great number of presentations in Finnish and
international conferences
• TestausOSY/FAST founding member.
• Co-author of Agile Testing Foundations book
• Regular blogger in Tivi-magazine
• EDUCATION
• ISTQB Expert Level Test Management & Advanced
Full & Agile Tester certified
• DASA DevOps, Scrum Master and SAFe certified
• SPICE provisionary assessor certified
• M.Sc.(Eng), Helsinki University of Technology
(present Aalto University), Otaniemi, Espoo
• Marketing studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison,
the USA.
BUSINESS DOMAINS
• Wide spread of business domain knowledge
• Embedded, Industry, Public,
• Training, Telecom, Commerce,
• Insurance, Banking, Pension
SERVICES
• ISTQB Advanced, Foundation and Agile Testing +
Knowit Quality Professional
• DASA DevOps
• Quality & Test process and organization
development, Metrics
• Agile testing, Scrum, Kanban, Lean
• Leadership
• Test automation, Mobile, Cloud, DevOps, AI
• Quality, Cost, Benefits.
Kari Kakkonen
Twitter.com/kkakkonen
https://www.linkedin.com/in/karikakkonen/
Dragonsout.com

3. 2400
Employees, 150 in
Finland
5 countries
Sweden, Norway,
Denmark, Finland and
Germany
315 million
Turnover
Nasdaq
OMX Mid Cap
30 million
Profit, margin 9,6 %
Knowit “We create a sustainable and humane
society through digitalization and innovation.”
knowit.fi

4. ISTQB® 2018 4
ISTQBⓇ World’s largest software testing association
www.istqb.org
December 2019

5. 15.6.2020 © Dragons Out Oy 5
About the book ”Dragons Out!”
• A book about software testing for children,
learning through fantasy
– In English AND in Finnish
– Publishing in 2020
• There is also a lack of testers, not only a lack of
coders
– We need to educate children in testing, too, not
only in coding
• Author Kari Kakkonen
• Illustrator Adrienn Széll
• More info: www.dragonsout.com
– Book preorders available!

6. Agenda
• Testing careers
• Agile influence to testing
• Test automation
• DevOps
• Artificial Intelligence
6Photo taken at Lainio Snow Village, Kari Kakkonen

7. “You are in the focus”
Testing Careers
7Photo taken at Lainio Snow Village, Kari Kakkonen

8. ISTQB® 2018 8
ISTQBⓇ ECO-SYSTEM
FiSTB and GeoSTQB
are local member
boards

9. ISTQB® 2020 9ISTQB® Internal Document – Not to be disclosed outside
More than
973,000
exams worldwide!
Figures as of EO 2019
Executive Summary
About
707,000
certificates worldwide!

10. ISTQB® 2020 10ISTQB® Internal Document – Not to be disclosed outside
Facts & Figures as of EO 2019
• ISTQB is the market leader and the most successful test certification scheme on the market.
• 66 local boards and a worldwide coverage of 99%+
• 973K exams, 707K certificates.
• New products in the pipeline (just a sneak peak – it is still a secret ;-) )
– Agility
– AI

11. Covid-19 Effect
• Testers have had limited or no
access to testing trainings and
certifications during
containment & social
distancing
• Some Accredited Training
Providers, Exam Providers,
and Member Boards have
faced dramatic financial
situations
11

12. ISTQB® 2020 12ISTQB® Internal Document – Not to be disclosed outside
• Enable Remote Proctoring
– No-one has been left behind
– Revenue & quality are preserved as much
as possible by ensuring quality criteria are
in place
– Centrally controlled – Member Board &
Exam Provider solution
Anti-covid-19 Initiatives

13. ISTQB® 2020 13ISTQB® Internal Document – Not to be disclosed outside
ISTQBⓇ PRODUCT PORTFOLIO
I’m a Full
Advanced
Certified

14. ISTQB® 2020 14ISTQB® Internal Document – Not to be disclosed outside
• Test Manager
• Tester
• Technical Tester
• Consider
– Context
• Agile, too?
CAREER PATHS

15. ISTQB® 2020 15ISTQB® Internal Document – Not to be disclosed outside
• Test Manager
• Tester
• Technical Tester
• Consider
– Which domain
• E.g. Automotive
– Which specialization
• E.g. Usability
• E.g. Acceptance
CAREER PATHS

16. ISTQB® 2020 16ISTQB® Internal Document – Not to be disclosed outside
• Test Manager
• Tester
• Technical Tester
• Consider
– Context
• Agile, too?
– Which domain
• E.g. Gambling
– Which specialization
• E.g. Security
• E.g. Test automation
CAREER PATHS

17. ISTQB® 2020 17ISTQB® Internal Document – Not to be disclosed outside
• Agile
– Scrum Master? SAFe Agilist?
• DevOps
– DASA DevOps Fundamentals?
• Requirements
– IREB CPRE?
• Business Analyst
– IQBBA Foundation?
• AI
– A4Q AI and Software Testing?
• Test improvement
– TMMi Professional?
SUPPORTING COMPETENCES
SOME EXAMPLES
“Tester needs other skills, too”

18. • “Tester is in the team”
Agile influence to
testing
Photo taken at Lainio Snow Village, Kari Kakkonen

19. • The whole team, the testers,
developers, and the business
representatives, is
responsible for quality by
working together in every step
of the development process
• Testers will work closely with
both developers and business
representatives to ensure that
the desired quality levels are
achieved
• to support and collaborate with
business representatives to help
them create suitable
acceptance tests,
• to agree on the testing strategy
with developers
• to decide on test automation
approaches.
Whole Team Approach Responsibilities
© Knowit Oy Trainings v. 1.3-170115 1-19
Tester
Business
Stakeholders
Developer
Acceptance
tests
Test
Strategy
Automation
Approaches
Collaboration

20. Testing Quadrants, Test Levels, and Testing
Types
© Knowit Oy Trainings v. 1.3-170115 3-20
Source: Lisa
Crispin and
Janet Gregory
Functional tests
Examples
Story tests
Prototypes
Simulations
Exploratory testing
Scenarios
Usability testing
UAT (User Acceptance Testing)
Alpha/beta
Unit Tests
Component Tests
Performance & load testing
Security testing
”-ility” testing
Automated &
manual
Automated
Manual
Tools
Technology facing
Business facing
SupportingtheTeam/
GuideDevelopment
CritiqueProduct

21. Applying Acceptance Test-Driven Development
© Knowit Oy Trainings v. 1.3-170115 3-21
Fix user stories
Expected
behaviour
Create tests
positive behavior
negative behavior
non-functional
Automate tests
Implement
functionality
Step1:
• Analyze
• Discuss
• Fix
Step2:
• Examples
• Data
• Distill
Step4:
• Develop functionality &
hook up tests,
Step3:
• Implement
automation
Specification workshop “ATDD”
“BDD”
“SBE”

22. • Tester is in the team
• Everyone is a tester
• Testing tasks are divided in the team
• Testing skills and experience must be available
Tester role

23. • “Automate also new tests”
Test automation
Photo taken at Tallinn Energy Discovery Centre, Kari Kakkonen

24. Maturity of Test AutomationTestefficiency
Automation utilization
No automation.
Automation in single
projects, but not
comprehensive or
planned.
Automation utilized in
all projects based on
common plan.
Automation utilized in all
areas of testing.
Optimized automation
level reached. Automation
as a centralized service
to enable systematic and
efficient reusability.
• Automation strategy
• Common methods
• Keyword libraries
• Mobile automation.
• Test data management
• Cloud mobile automation
• Agile environments
• Virtualized backend service.

25. Testing eras
pp.kk.vvvv © Knowit Trainings 25
I: Process pioneers
• Test management & tailored products
We are here
II: Commercial test tools first steps
• Test coverage & white-box testing
III: Growth of test automation
• Regression & black-box testing
• Static test automation
IV: Next generation of testing
• Test process & strategy
• Dynamic test automation
V:Testing and artificial intelligence
• Independent test automation
• AI as a tool

26. Integrated Test Automation Environment
Example
15.6.2020 26
Test Environment(s)
Test Automation Development WS’s
▪ Robot Framework
▪ Test execution management
(Jenkins)
▪ Version Control (GIT)
▪ Jmeter (Performance Testing)
Backup
Test Automation Execution
WS’s

27. • Increasing demand of test automation skills
• Test automation is also a task for all the software development team
• Not all tests are automated – place for exploratory testing etc.
Tester role

28. “Automated continuous delivery
pipelines”
DevOps
Photo taken at Tallinn Energy Discovery Centre, Kari Kakkonen

29. From optimizing software development to business agility
Responsiveness
Automation
deployed on larger
scale. Daily build
with automated
regression tests.
Ability to deliver SW
quality metrics and
deploy changes faster
to the production
environment.
Quality
management
Continuous
integration
Continuous delivery
& deployment
DevOps
Operational metrics
transparent, feature
throughput in days,
Processes fast and
lean, continuous
learning and
improvement.
Automation
at platform level,
automated
regression test sets.
Test automation
Quality
Agile development
Mature quality
management
process with unified
ways of working.
Agile methods in use.

30. Continuous Integration (CI)
Fully automated CI pipe
Development & Testing
Developer tests,
code reviews and
static analysis
SW build Automated
testing
Development
workflow
Dashboard(s) with real time status / instant feedback
Quality SW
ready for
delivery
Version Control

31. Continuous Delivery & Deployment (CD)
Delivery to
test
environment
Acceptance
tests
and push to
production
Release
SW installation
Updates/
upgrade
Operational
metrics
CONTINUOUS
INTEGRATION
PIPE
Instant feedback via dashboard(s) with real time status

32. • Tester is part of a DevOps team
• Even more demand for test automation skills
• Test & other automation merge
• Still place for manual steps if automation is too hard
Tester in DevOps

33. • “Tester becomes a teacher”
Artificial
Intelligence
Photo taken at Lainio Snow Village, Kari Kakkonen

34. • Artificial intelligence (AI) is
powered by machine learning
(ML).
• ML can be viewed as an
alternative programming
paradigm.
➢Area of applications is
similar or broader as in
programming.
• 1990: “Machines only do what
they are programmed to do”
• 2020: “Machines only do what
they learn from data”.
AI-ROBOTS VS ROBOTS
WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?
Code
?
?
?
Input
Output
Traditional
approach:
Work focuses
on coding rules
Machine learning
approach:
Work focuses on
collecting examples

35. • AI’s central economic effect in the
short term will be the automation of
tasks that could not be automated
before.[1]
• Applications can be divided to three
categories:
1. Descriptive (explanatory models)
2. Predictive (predictive models)
3. Experimentation (trial and error models).
APPLICATIONS OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
1 Preparing for the Future of Artificial Intelligence, National Science and Technology Council (2016).
2 R. Linturi, O.Kuusi, Suomen sata uutta mahdollisuutta 2018 – 2037: yhteiskunnan toimintamallit uudistava radikaaliteknologia, Eduskunnan
tulevaisuusvaliokunta (2018).
Points Technology basket
955 Neural networks and deep learning
670 Robot cars
558 Speech recognition, synthesis, and translation
540 3D recognition of environment
415 Chatbots and conversational robots
368 Recognition and projection of faces and emotions
365 Pattern recognition and other AI platforms
280 New robotized services
249 Remote work via robot and AI led work
189 Robot ecosystem interfaces
160 Easy 3D imaging of solid materials
150 Databases for AI expert softwares
114 Self-organization and swarm intelligence
Table: Value generation potential in near future.[2]

36. • AI is frequently based on fuzzy
logic that is ‘destined’ to make
mistakes.
• Paradox of automation: “More
efficient an automated system
is, more crucial the human
contribution becomes.”
➢ Include human to the equation.
DOES IT INCREASE OR DECREASE HUMAN
CONTRIBUTION?
Robot is confident
and doesn’t fail
Robot is
unconfident and
calls human
Robot is confident
and fails
HERE BE
DRAGONS!

37. • Also testing can be done partially by Artificial intelligence
• AI can make test automation better, faster and reach tests that were
not previously suitable for test automation
• AI is the ultimate tool and partner for a tester
• Tester needs to learn test automation AND artificial intelligence
Tester role

38. kari.kakkonen@istqb.org
kari.kakkonen@knowit.fi
kari.kakkonen@dragonsout.com
Thank you!
38Photo taken at Lainio Snow Village, Kari Kakkonen