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The Scottish Government

The Scottish Government transforms test management for a critical national project

Company overview

CHALLENGE

A new level of QA visibility and control was required for a critical national project.

SOLUTION

Tricentis qTest

The Scotland Act 2016 gave the Scottish Government control over social security benefits that were previously handled by the UK. This allowed the country to more closely align benefits with the Scottish values of dignity, fairness, and respect. However, it also meant that multiple complex IT systems had to be built—and methodically tested—in a short amount of time.

As the project advanced, the Scottish Government’s QA leaders recognized that their existing process wasn’t well-suited for the scope, speed, and complexity of this major project. They needed to ensure (and document) that every requirement was working properly and that every defect was fixed. However, the partner organization conducting the testing had every employee working with their own Excel spreadsheet of tests. There was no sharing of files or tests, and no synchronization with the project’s central requirements management system (Atlassian Jira). A new level of visibility and control was required to meet their objectives in terms of quality, compliance, and speed.

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    Industry: Government
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    Organization size: 5,001-10,000
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    Location: Scotland
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Challenges

  • Moving from waterfall to agile development to meet the required timelines
  • Unifying a quality process that crossed Jira, Jenkins, GitHub, Selenium, NeoLoad
  • Time wasted copying/pasting information between Excel and Jira
  • Lack of visibility and accountability regarding partner activity
  • Full “requirement to test to defect” traceability required for compliance
  • Strict security restrictions
  • No time to spend configuring or customizing a new test management solution
  • Arrow Icon“The rollout of qTest Manager was smooth, with Tricentis providing excellent support and training. This was definitely not a case of delivering the software and walking away. Tricentis took an interest in making sure we deployed and obtained the benefits of their product….[It was] pleasing to see the product is under continual development with new features coming on-stream on a regular basis.” Lynne Ewing Defect Manager & Continuous Improvement Analyst

“Thanks to this proactive process improvement, the first phase of the project was delivered on deadline, with exceptional quality.”

Solution

The team selected qTest, Tricentis’ test management solution, to take their QA process to the next level. The enterprise-grade solution allowed them to satisfy strict security restrictions while enjoying the simplicity of SaaS. Testers across various locations could all log in from any place and any system, see exactly what needed to be tested next, then automatically report the outcome back into Jira. Everyone from their internal QA leaders and developers to their external testing partners gained instant visibility into what was tested, how, and with what outcome. Working in this manner, they built the organization’s first-ever formal regression test suite. Thanks to this proactive process improvement, the first phase of the project was delivered on deadline, with exceptional quality.

qTest Manager is now an integral part of their application development process, with over 100 active users working with it on a daily basis. Next, they are planning to use qTest Pulse to orchestrate the execution of their various test automation tools. As they extend from agile development to DevOps, this will help them establish automated quality gates within their CI/CD pipeline

Results

  • Real-time, centralized visibility into test progress, coverage, and outcomes
  • Faster test planning, design, and execution
  • Partners can test from any location or system
  • Full traceability from requirements to tests to defects, all tracked within Jira
  • Rapid adoption and daily usage among 100+ users
  • Improved quality through increased collaboration between developers and testers