How to switch from Manual to Automation Testing?

Length: 2 Minutes

Audience: For those who want to start Automation.

In this blog of “How to switch from Manual to Automation testing?”, we will see how one can switch from Manual to Automation.

Does this require any extraordinary steps to carry out? No. Few simple steps which will transform you from Manual to Automation tester.

Before “How”, why we need to switch. Simpler answer is, its due to demand of time and speed at which technology advancement are happening. To know more on “Why”, read my blog “Automation Alarm“.

Now, how we can switch from Manual to Automation Testing? or how one can upgrade his or her skill set.

Here are few parameters you need to have or do before you want to switch.

Willingness:

Many times we heard from people “Hey I want to learn Automation.” or “I want to switch from manual to automation”. But very few of them have willingness to start and dedication to work on it. Many automation tool requires programming knowledge, so before starting with automation many has fear of learning programming knowledge. If you know at least one programming language, you can learn any programming language.Even if you don’t know any programming language its not very difficult learn it. Automation tools require less programming knowledge but good logic building skills.

Few automation tools like RPA does not require knowledge of programming language, however they mostly used for automating business logic.

Analyse your current skill set:

After you have planned to start with automation you need to analyse your current skill set which will help you to decide what kind of automation you can learn.

Example: If you are working as functional tester and testing application manually, you might be interested in learning Selenium or QTP. And if you are working as a Performance or Security tester, you might be interested in learning Load runner, Apache JMeter, sqlmap, Wireshark.

Decide what you like Vs Industry demand:

Once you analyse your skill set, it is very important decide what you like by considering the fact what industry demands as well. Because both the things should go hand in hand, however that might not be true always.

Prepare plan and start learning:

Once you decide which automation tool you need to learn, prepare plan to build foundation first. i.e. Identify prerequisite to learn that particular tool. Suppose you want to learn Selenium, first important thing is to decide programming language, Let us say you want to learn selenium with Java then you need start learning Java. And to learn any programming language tremendous amount of free material is available on internet.

Example For learning Java: www.javatpoint.com/java-tutorial

Once you complete the foundation then you can start learning actual automation tool. Learn simpler concepts of automation tool first then start with complex logic building.

Consistency:

Most important thing is consistency, you need to consistently work on it, do 2-3 assignments daily. Always start with simple things then move towards complex assignments.

I am sure withing 2-3 months you can transform yourself from Manual to Automation tester.

Thanks for reading! Keep learning!