The Five S’s create a structure for test automation

I use the Five S’s to create a disciplined structure that helps me create and maintain automated tests. Mary and Tom Poppendiek recommend using the Five S’s to create the discipline necessary to develop quality software. They wrote that “the five S’s are a classic lean tool to organise a workspace” [1]. 

Mary and Tom Poppendiek describe the Five S’s by translating the original Japanese words into English and give examples of using each of the S’s in the kitchen, in the workplace and for a java development project. I have taken their idea and created a table showing the translation of the Japanese words and examples of using the Five S’s in the kitchen, workplace and test automation.

Japanese	English	Kitchen	Workspace	Test Automation
Seiri	Sort	Sort through kitchen tools and throw away any unused tools.	Sort through the servers, and find old files that will never be used. Delete or back them up.	Remove dead code, unused imports, and unused methods.
Seiton	Systemise	Find a place for everything and make it easy to find.	Craft desktop layouts and file structures so that things are easy to find	Organise projects and packages so that everything is easy to find.
Seiso	Shine	Clean the kitchen.	Clean whiteboards and desktops.	Resolve TODOs and improve performance.
Seiketsu	Standardise	Fill and run the dishwasher every night	Put automation and standards in place.	Reduce complexity and improve ease of maintenance.
Shitsuke	Sustain	Keep up the discipline	Keep up the discipline.	Use and follow standard procedures.

I am sure that you can think of additional examples of how to use each of the S’s to aid your test automation. 

Test Automation is software development and benefits from the disciplines that are used in software development. The Five S’s can help improve test automation that uses test frameworks such as Selenium and Playwright. They also can help automation projects that use low code tools such as Ghost Inspector.

I have found that sustain is the most important of the Five S’s because if you do not sustain the standards and practices that you have created with the other four S’s you can not improve. Sustaining standards and practices is a practice where value is gained.

My thinking about how to automate tests and maintain the tests has been shaped by the Five S’s. This is because the Five S’s enable me to view the issues I encounter, such as how to maintain a library of functions, through a framework that helps me improve the tests. 

The Five S’s help me keep my automated tests in a state where they are easy to maintain, have no flaky tests and are easy to read. I hope that the Five S’s can help you do the same.

References:

[1] Implementing Lean Software Development By Mary and Tom Poppendiek