Client’s challenges
The client was the bank’s business solutions service department, responsible for the development of the quality assurance discipline within the company to strengthen the bank’s reliability, customer orientation, and competitive advantage. In order to fulfil these responsibilities, the client had to overcome the bottleneck of manual testing. It was too slow, and it presented a major challenge with detrimental impact to speed, cost and time to market. There were quality issues on the process and on the service level, as their QA was not fully optimized. The test case documentation existed, and was of a good quality, but was insufficient to cover the business risk. There was a lack of transparency due to not having the metrics that secure accurate insights and fact-based decisions. The client’s project environment was a standard application which they brought from the bank they previously belonged to. It was a spin-off application, and they requested external support to consolidate it, and then add new functionality.
This is why the client was interested in how Sixsentix can setup test automation to support their strategy and time-to-market.
Sixsentix’s solution
The Sixsentix approach and methodology consisted of:
1) three assessments: QA maturity assessment across various dimensions, risk-based assessment of the requirements structure for specified SuT and analysis of test automation potential and transformation
2) two design deliverables: definition of SWAT target operating model and the transformation plan to target model
The assessment included interviews and documentation study, held with the representatives of the relevant client stakeholder groups. The QA maturity assessment was the baseline for the following deliverables: SWOT analysis of the currently implemented QA process, as well as risks, challenges and mitigation actions including quick wins. Sixsentix performed the current state analysis, collected insights about the maturity of 15 QA relevant categories in the SDLC, and spotted four areas of improvement where the business solutions organization has a leading role. In parallel, Sixsentix run the risk assessment and automation pilot to showcase the potential of automation in that department.
Based on the current state analysis, Sixsentix held workshops with the client to develop the strategies for the target operating model, which would describe the best possible highly efficient organizational and process setup.
Finally, Sixsentix proposed a transformation plan from the current state to the target operating model - a roadmap to increase the maturity level of the organization towards the mutually agreed maturity target levels.
“Sixsentix QA maturity assessment provided the client with a 360-degree overview on the organizational setup, tools and environment in use and operational processes to run and change their business. Now the client knows exactly where their weak points are, how to mitigate the risks, and they have a roadmap for building up regression tests, automated dashboards and implementing the quick wins. Sixsentix helped the client overcome the challenges stemming from the changes in their environment, and they could adapt to the market needs more easily.“
Sixsentix Project Lead
Value delivered
The Client received information regarding automation potential in the current application portfolio and the detailed overview of their QA maturity, with a proposal for implementation of the quick wins and the actions they could take to overcome the problematic issues.
The assessment goal was successfully achieved: areas of improvement in the QA process were detected as planned, and the quick wins were proposed, as well as an approach for the design and implementation of a target operating model with focus on test automation.
The client received the report which contained the SWOT Analysis, maturity analysis with gaps, the risk catalogue and mitigation actions / quick wins. The major benefit is the achieved transparency and, more importantly, the control of business functionality regarding risk distribution and testing priority.
With Sixsentix support, the client gained the capability to act more in a DevOps model, to support business and cope with fast changing market trends in a very cost-efficient way, as the bank could reduce the test related efforts massively.
