What is manual testing and is it dead?

There has been some stir in the tester community when John Somez proclaimed that there is no future for manual testing. As can be expected this hit the nerve of quite a few testers both in the comments section as well as twitterverse. Before I take a stand, let me define what I think is manual testing based on my experience in the industry

What is manual testing (SET 1)

1. An activity that follows a well written script written by someone else with series of actions and checks(assertions)
2. When the tester is stalled with any variance in the script. Eg: A popup dialog shows up
3. Result of the test is binary passed or failed.
4. Job of the tester is to provide coverage for a specific device(s).

When it ceases to be manual testing (SET 2)

1. When the steps/scripts are created by tester themselves.
2. With a failure tester tries to find the root cause or the pattern of the failures. Eg: Cart total doesn’t add up because tax doesn’t show up for europe logins.
3. When a tester has to make a judgement call to mark the test as passed or failed.
4. When he has to assign a priority for a failing test. Eg: is this a blocker for release or p1/p2

The first set of tasks are yes dying or frowned upon in general industry is moving away from them. My own company had a transition plan for the QA testers to become SDET 1 or to leave. The second of tasks are here to stay, no matter the level of the tester SDET 1–5 they are rightly involved with these steps. And till tools, technology are mature enough for automation SET 1 is also bound to stay.

To prove this lets imagine a very talented SDET at Microsoft (with best SDET culture) that is working on the sexiest possible testing gig halolens. This task will involve a lot of activities from SET 2 at first, he has to first create test strategy, plans and cases. He have to find the limitations of the systems and create boundaries for the system. He works with devs, product owners to create a quality threshold but as soon as a release is approaching he has no choice but to resort to SET 1. Testing this stuff is already complex but to develop automation on top is still years away. Now he may be lucky and have drones of contractors or junior testers that can do these SET 1 activities but that does not mean these needn’t be done.

Testing is a complex skill, the more you develop it the better you grow and the better your salary is. If you are involved in the kind of testing that can be automated (set 1) with the current set of tools, yes your job is in a jeopardy if not today, 2 years from now. His advice is those folks is to gain those skills that will enable you to make a move from 1 to 2. Or better yet learn automation skills and keep doing what you are doing in scalable fashion.