1. Agile Transformation, Unified Automation Framework, Robot Framework, Compliance Automation.

I am an automation specialist managing a team of high quality automation specialists to deliver automation solutions. We work across multiple IT Application Services platforms such as SAP, mobile app development, Big Data, Web development, Data Visualization - Qlik and Tableau, Salesforce, Drupal, Workday, Test management etc. We create and maintain Continuous Integration through cloud services. We deliver high quality software working in an Agile development manner. In the past I have worked on building and maintaining a number of test automation frameworks in Unified Communications and Chip Manufacturing R&D centers. I am originally from India and have completed my Bachelors in Engineering from India Masters in I.T. from DIT, Dublin. I believe in knowledge sharing and gaining expertise in IT. I still feel like I have a lot to learn and have to continuously strife to keep up with the changes.

The challenge with maintaining multiple automation framework when working across multiple technologies such as Selenium, Appium, Sql etc. in a validated Good Practices (GxP) environment has been a challenge within Johnson and Johnson. The expertise of the manual tester remains the key and a new person joining this space becomes a bottleneck until they start delivering automated tests quickly. The challenge for keeping the framework consistent, keeping the learning curve small, automating around SQA involvement and extending the framework across multiple technologies is what we wish to showcase. This highlights how the role of an automation person is and should be defined in an Agile development process. How also to build an automation environment and the areas to look forward for when building a framework.

We will focus on Robot framework as a tool to build the unifying framework which is a keyword driven framework employing BDD techniques to build the automated tests. A brief overview of how the framework can be extended will be presented and how the architecture came about for creating such a framework within JnJ. We will also focus on the best practices which employing this framework and also on building common understanding across multiple project stakeholders. JnJ has transitioned towards Agile from Waterfall with our offices in Limerick being the first of Agile development centers in the world. Automation framework was the key in helping JnJ complete this transition. We will highlight the challenges that we faced in agile transformation and also on how a restrictive validation process needed to be complied with in achieving the automation goals.