Programme test management in a multi-vendor environment

Programme test management in a multi-vendor environment

The client: A large international bank
Industry: Capital Markets
Technologies: FIX messaging, Gloss, NVision
Ten10 services: Test strategy, functional testing

Summary

A global bank was looking for a test partner to review a large scale integration project that was running four months behind schedule. Ten10 was engaged to perform the review and to provide a test strategy that would accelerate the project delivery and implement best practice.

A further requirement was also to provide test management and UAT testing to ensure the delivery and the day-to-day management of the execution kept within the planned timelines and the product was ready for go-live. Ten10 was required to work with two external consultancy firms who were responsible for the execution of the product, both of whom were based in Paris.

Ten10 overcame the geographical challenges by initially establishing a morning test call (to allocate tasks) and an evening test call (to review progress). Towards the end of the project Ten10 set up a war room and made it mandatory for a Project Manager from each site to be in London so escalation could be resolved in a timely and efficient manner.

Another key challenge of the project was developing and deploying a test strategy that would bring the go-live of the project forward by six months. This was to be achieved by implementing a risk-based approach to testing; moving the development process from the legacy waterfall methodology to an Agile methodology and integrating testing into an iterative development process to enable the faster delivery of results.

Agile	Waterfall

Ten10 applied a rigorous test management approach including tooling (JIRA); ensuring that each tester understood the functionality they were testing, as well as setting daily execution targets to ensure the project ran to time. Daily test reporting was set up to effectively monitor the progress against plan, and to provide the client sponsor with complete visibility and transparency of the project and any issues. As a result, testing became the main driver of the daily stand ups.

In addition, Ten10 implemented an end-to-end defect management approach to ensure
that defects were correctly raised, and that in-turn, fixes were provided by developers in a structured manner. It was recommended that input messages from the clearing agent were stubbed during the early part of testing, removing the dependency of waiting for the clearing agent’s development to be completed.

Finally, Ten10 ensured that the project sponsor reviewed and signed off the test scope in order to provide a full audit trail. Through comprehensive management of the external QA parties and detailed progress review and escalation as needed, the project was delivered in the timelines committed to in Ten10’s test strategy. The client fed back that this was the only major IT transformation project at the bank which was delivered on time, to plan and within budget.