The Challenge
During the pandemic, our client, a global pharmaceutical leader, needed to optimise its COVID-19 vaccine production and delivery processes. Our client had to rapidly implement business applications in order to increase production efficiency. This was an urgent, large-scale, mission critical operation. Production could not be interrupted, but at the same time, we had to ensure the software was totally reliable — this meant performing thousands of tests in real-time.
Problems to solve
Our client required an agile, efficient and continuous testing approach. The project was particularly demanding, as the effective management of staff working remotely was a new challenge in the early stages of the pandemic. Other significant issues included:
- Slow manual testing
- Long development times for automated tests
- Insufficient automated tests in total QA activity
The solution
We solved these significant issues by developing a set of automated tests to verify both new functionality and regression by:
- Improving the client’s software delivery process and configuring automated tests for all testable stories developed in sprints
- Introducing a “Release on Demand” approach
- Establishing automated testing processes based on Agile testing principles, e.g., Test Pyramids, Three Amigos Meetings, etc.
- Implementing a process based on Behaviour-Driven Development and the Gherkin syntax
- Developing a custom platform with an advanced data module and custom Selenium packaging which increased testing stability
Results
We ran 2100 automated tests covering 92% of user stories. This resulted in
Shorter overall testing time
Faster test development time
It was an honour and a great challenge to work for a pharmaceutical company that provided vaccines to populations around the world. Automated testing allowed us to fulfil our tasks. We now are certain that C&F knows how to work under time pressure and in completely new times, which the pandemic years certainly were.
Marcin Ludzia | Test Automation Lead