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Testers and Automation: Avoiding the Traps – Live and In Person!

Location: Auckland, New Zealand
Date: Feb 17, 2025 to Feb 19, 2025

Why do we test? Why do we automate aspects of testing work? We do both to fulfill the fundamental mission of testing: helping the business to keep value high, cost low, and trouble to a minimum by finding problems quickly — before it’s too late.

Rapid Software Testing returns to Auckland as Potentia and Resourcefully organize a three-day live presentation of Testers and Automation: Avoiding the Traps. This class is designed for testers whether or not they specialize in automation and tooling — but it’s also designed for developers, managers, and teams who are looking develop or refine their current automation strategies.

Register here

About the Class

“Test automation” is a hot topic. If you are in the testing field, then you are probably being pressured to automate your work. But how should you go about it? Only certain specific aspects of testing can be automated, so which aspects should you focus on first? There are lots of expensive tools you could use, but there are also free tools, and maybe you can create some tools yourself. What should you NOT focus on? What traps must you try to avoid? How can AI help — or hurt?Creating, applying, and maintaining useful automation to support testing can be immensely valuable. If you want to do it well, it can also be a huge challenge. This class is designed to help you help you meet that challenge, looking through the lenses of the Rapid Software Testing methodology.

Maybe you’re a coder; maybe you’re not. This class is designed to help you either way. If don’t write code, we don’t teach you how, but we will help you learn to work immediately and productively with people who do.

In this class, we’ll help you — and through you, your organization — to expand notions of automation beyond GUI or API output checking. We will show you some creative uses of inexpensive tools. to probe data. We’ll present tools that can help you visualize and report on test coverage. We’ll help you to analyze dimensions of cost and value, and to evaluate how different kinds of tools can help or hurt your testing. And we’ll talk about to recognize and learn from things that happen in the Secret Life of Automation.

This class is not affiliated with any tool vendor. We’ll use tools in class, but we don’t teach you to operate any specific tool. We may demonstrate or mention particular tools during the class, but we have not accepted and will not accept any payment or benefit from commercial interests. (We may be biased, but we have not been bribed.) We will show you how to analyze vendor claims critically.

In short, this class is about the essence of automation strategy: vision and setting goals that make sense for you and your organization.

Space is limited! Register here.

RST Auckland: Testers and Automation: Avoiding the Traps; presented by Michael Bolton Picture of Auckland and Michael Bolton who is teaching the course: Testers and Automation: Avoiding the Traps.

If you have question about the class, please reach out to Michael Bolton. For questions about registration or logistics, please contact Ryan Bevens.

RST Courses are also being offered in Wellington (February 24-26) and in Christchurch (March 10-12).

 RST in Christchurch: Rapid Software Testing: Explored March 10 - 12, 2025

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Taking Testing Seriously: The Rapid Software Testing Approach
Now Shipping Worldwide!
Graphic of Taking Testing Seriously: The Rapid Software Testing Approach 1st Edition by James Bach (Author), Michael Bolton (Author) Published by Wiley.
Due in Stores November 4, 2025
Order Now on Barnes & Noble, Amazon.com, Bookshop.org, Bam!, Ark.no, and Indigo Books.
REFERENCE DOCUMENTS
  • A Context-Driven Approach to Automation in Testing
  • A Rapid Testing Framework
  • A Ridiculously Rapid Introduction to Rapid Software Testing (video)
  • Breaking the Test Case Addiction
  • Elements of Excellent Testing
  • Exploratory Testing
  • Exploratory Testing 3.0
  • Heuristic Test Strategy Model
  • How RST is Different From “Factory-Style” Testing
  • How to Evolve a Context-Driven Test Plan
  • Investigating Bugs: A Testing Skills Study
  • Is RST compatible with our context?
READ MORE

Events

  • Taking Testing Seriously — A Panel Discussion
    • Dec 18, 2025
    • Online (for North American Time Zones)
  • Rapid Software Testing Explored with James Bach (EUROPE)
    • Jan 13, 2026 - Jan 16, 2026
    • Online (for Europe/UK Time Zones)

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PUBLIC CLASS LOCATIONS

  • Online (North American Time Zones)
  • Dec 18, 2025

  • Online (Europe/UK time)
  • Jan 13, 2026 - Jan 16, 2026

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    • Testers and Automation: Avoiding the Traps
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    • Rapid Software Testing Focused: Risk
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