Test automation is a core enabling practice on Agile projects. But test automation is difficult! Most applications are not designed to support easy test automation. Join Gerard as he leads us through applying Systems Thinking to understand why our current way of organizing our team roles and responsibilities may be the root cause of this difficulty and what you can do to address them. (Spoiler alert: the problem is trying to automate tests after the software is built!) He provides examples of good "executable specifications" that can be used to drive both functionality and testability into the application. And he describes the life-cycle of an executable specification starting with a feature idea, progressing through a non-executable example all the way to a satisfied, executable example.