The primary goal of the process was to provide Lendlease with a programme of short, medium and long-term objectives to improve the current test process, increasing its effectiveness and efficiency.
By using Planit, Lendlease were able to understand their existing test process in detail and the current pain points based on independent evidence gathered by Planit. This not only helped Lendlease ICT prepare for future projects but to ensure the appropriate corrective actions were taken in current projects.
Key amongst the improvement plan were the delivery of tailored templates for the common Agile testing deliverables, a Testing Centre-of-Excellence including being fully documented on SharePoint and coaching/training sessions for Lend Lease staff on Agile Testing.
Understanding how the testing process fits into the overall project framework and what the key commercial drivers and dependencies are, allowed Planit to tailor a bespoke process to Lendlease's needs that is monitored for improvement on a continual basis.
After the initial meetings, Planit came up and ratified with Lendlease the focus areas for investigation that would form the main work for the test process initiative:
- In-flight project support
- Early Test Resource Engagement and on-boarding
- Testing Policy
- Test Planning
- Managed Testing Services
- Agile Testing Process
- Non-Functional Testing
- Test Environment needs
- Coaching and Training
- Progress Reporting & Metrics
In addition to conducting interviews with key stakeholders, Planit reviewed the current process documentation, test artefacts and work product templates. Planit also facilitated retrospectives for projects that had recently delivered, which gave them valuable insight into project constraints and challenges.
The key deliverable from Planit was a roadmap of improvements driven through the Lendlease change management programme. This took the form of a recommendation report plus presentations to key stakeholders. Plus some targeted training and coaching.
The main recommendations were:
- Early Engagement – all projects engage testing resources early in the SDLC through a consistent process via ICT Management.
- Agile Test Process – to develop and implement an Agile Testing framework and process which will lead to consistent practices across all projects, increasing the quality of delivered products.
- Enterprise-wide Tool Strategy – through Planit conducting a tools evaluation and proof-of-concept, implement an integrated toolset to support all functional and non-functional testing requirements complimenting existing investments made in Agile tools.
- Professional Testing staff capability – provide professional qualified (Certified Agile Testing) staff as part of a managed service with specific knowledge of the Lendlease toolset, process and domain.
Lendlease were exceptionally pleased with the outcome of the Agile Test Process Improvement exercise. As a result of this, Planit will provide test process consultancy and testing services across all projects.
Using their Agile Test Process Improvement product, Planit were able to quickly determine the organisational and testing process maturity in terms of how well Agile practices were being implemented at Lendlease. The report presented this as a measure against industry best practice which will allow Lend Lease to closely monitor their improvements progress against investment. This allowed Planit to determine a credible and achievable roadmap to enable Lendlease in partnership with Planit, to transform their current waterfall approach into a robust Agile methodology by targeting key areas in the overall SDLC process.