Recruitment Solutions Group Australia (RSGA) – Part of Business NSW, is a leader in recruitment and payroll management services.
IMPROVES SOFTWARE DELIVERY BY 80%
Introduction
After RSGA’s growth shifted from an acquisition-based model to organic growth from their constituent members, they needed a cross-platform application to manage the recruitment and payroll processing functions across all their 35 offices. This software solution would have to integrate 12 diverse legacy applications running at their clients’ offices, and testing such a complex system required enormous expertise and testing experience.
It is this challenge that prompted them to, once again, engage Testpoint, a partner they already trusted, to provide them with professional software testing services.
Testpoint™ has repeatedly proven their capability to successfully handle the testing and test automation of complex and integrated systems with distributed and microservices architectures.
The Turbo project integrated 12 diverse legacy corporate systems running on different platforms, and increased delivery of releases by 80%.
Business NSW
Business NSW was founded 194 years ago and has grown into an organisation with over 40,000 members and 37 offices across Australia, one more in Shanghai. It has a permanent staff of 660, and at any given time, plus roughly 2,300 temporary hires, all working for their business and organization clients.
Who is RSGA ?
RSGA provides high quality recruitment services to all sectors of the economy including acute and tertiary health, community services, corporate, and the industrial sector. Whether these are full time, part time or casual roles, RSGA can match the right employees with the right roles. RSGA has continued to grow, both by acquisition and through internal growth, and this has been the catalyst for the Turbo Project – an application to consolidate the operations of diverse, legacy recruitment and payroll systems onto a single IT platform.
RSGA’s Mission & Value Proposition
RSGA aims to provide the most appropriate connections between employers and the candidates most suited for open positions. The group’s value proposition to jobseekers is a promise to foster career growth by matching them to the right job opportunities. It is a win-win for everyone, as employers also get the best candidates.
The Turbo Software Project
Developing a complex system to integrate 12 diverse legacy systems into one platform that will streamline operations across 35 clients offices and efficiently manage the recruitment and payroll processing functions.
RSGA moved from growth based on an acquisition model, to growing organically with the internal growth of its members. The level of efficiency in each individual office under the group has an effect on the overall business goals, and RSGA had to look for a solution.
To streamline operations across the many diverse offices, RSGA needed a software platform that could manage all these offices and boost operational efficiency.
A few releases down the line, they faced a major problem with testing the Turbo project and went to the market to seek a software testing services company. That’s when Testpoint was brought on board.
Robust Testing of The Turbo Project
According to Jonathan, “the sheer breadth and variety of legacy systems and their data that were migrated to the new platform was immense. There were many go-lives as each constituent member of the business was brought onto the Turbo platform, each bringing its own set of challenges. One of the main challenges to ensuring successful and high quality releases was implementing a robust testing strategy and framework. This has been a very challenging project due to the complexity of the legacy platforms and the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.”
TESTING THE TURBO SOFTWARE PROJECT
Key challenges
- BURDENING THE CLIENT’S STAFF WITH TESTING WORK
The previous solution relied on a business-as-usual testing strategy. Employees of the client business would run tests as they carried out their daily tasks. It required each participating employee to dedicate some time to run the tests on each business use case.
Under this old strategy, the testing workload was pushed out to the client, which was not desirable. It increased employee fatigue and lowered their efficiency in executing their normal duties. It also added to the labour costs of the client business, as the process often took away a substantial amount of time for which the client would pay the employees. This was not in line with the goals of the Turbo platform.
- UNQUALIFIED TEST RESOURCES
Ideally, the testing of the complex, sophisticated and integrated Turbo platform developed by the Recruitment Solutions Group Australia required a team of experienced Test Analysts and process management resources and tools.
Before engaging the services of Testpoint, the daily usage testing strategy of using the client business’s resources to test the immensely complex code base meant that the testing was carried out by staff who were not trained in software testing and management techniques. These employees were subject matter experts, and were not qualified to deliver accurate tests and ensure a bug-free software release.
As had happened with earlier releases before RSGA outsourced the testing of the Turbo project to an external professional testing services provider, the results were always difficult to ascertain and quantify. This left the group without a clear picture of the progress of the testing process, and the actionable data required to recommend a go live based on a data driven decision.
- LACK OF A MATURE TEST REPORTING
The previous business-as-usual testing method, using the business’s HR resources, was compromised due to the burden placed on the client business.
With the client’s in-house staff running the tests on such a complex system, there were bound to be challenges. It required expertise and experienced in payroll and recruitment systems, Test reporting was fragmented and chaotic because the staff lacked knowledge in testing techniques.
The test results were difficult to ascertain and quantify, leaving the business without a clear picture of progress and the data required to recommend a go live based on a data driven decision.
- DIFFICULTY IN ACHIEVING SUCCESSFUL RELEASES
Prior to engaging Testpoint, successful and high quality releases were difficult to achieve, and software was at risk of being deployed without meeting the relevant exit criteria.
Early releases relied on the existing business resources to drive the testing. While this delivered a quality outcome for the initial small releases, it was evident that this alone would not support the complexity of the future releases. RSGA faced a big challenge in coming up with a well structured release management system, and could not guarantee that the system was based on quantitative information.
This resulted in a number of sub-optimal releases with negative impact on business operations. What the project required was specialist testing personnel to complement the existing testing regime, thereby reliving client businesses the day-to-day burden of managing the testing process
Business Risks Faced In Absence of a Solution
- Business Cashflows
Invoicing RSGA’s clients would be susceptible to error, which would result to delays in payments. This would have a negative effect on the organisation’s cashflows.
- Errors in Payroll Processing
Staff would potentially be paid incorrectly, with the outcome that they may not want to work for the organisation, or the organisation may make financial losses.
- Compliance Issues
The business would be unable to meet all statutory requirements, and this would result in issues with the ATO and other regulatory authorities.
- System Failure
The recruitment management system would be incapable of providing an easy-to-use and efficient platform
The Solutions Required
- Industrial Grade Testing Framework
The Turbo project’s team went to the market seeking an organisation that could assist with the testing of the program. They were looking for a testing services provider who could deliver a mature, time-tested software testing framework capable of supporting the complexity of the testing environment.
- Remove The Testing Burden From Client Business’s Staff
Unlike with the existing testing strategy, the new solution would have to remove the dependency on the clients’ business’s resources. This would save the business’s resources and allow it to retain the productivity of its employees.
- Test Management Platform
According to Jonathan, the Program Manager at RSGA, they also required a complete test management platform like Vansah for Jira Test Management that could be used by the testing team and the relevant vendors while providing actionable management reporting. They had to ensure that each release was of the highest possible accuracy. The fewer the bugs in the software, the lower the financial cost of fixing them.
- A Structured Release System
Due to the vast diversity of the legacy systems that were behind integrated onto the Turbo platform, RSGA team had to ensure that all releases were of high quality as well as successful.
Testpoint™ Fills The Testing Services Gap
“In consultancy parlance, Testpoint does not ‘body–shop’. They immersed themselves into our business. They had provided similar resources for other major projects at NSW Business Chamber, had a proven capability, and are a trusted partner. “
~ Jonathan Clare
Testpoint were contracted to provide a managed testing service. This included a test manager and two test analysts. They also provided their own senior management team to oversee the whole testing process, and give internal RSGA management executive level reporting.
“Testpoint has a proven capacity to work with vendors, a critical skill for this project”, he added.
Jonathan Clare, the project manager at RSGA reflected that “Testpoint has been able to deliver an industrial grade test framework to facilitate a professional software testing regime.”
How Testpoint filled the testing gap?
When Testpoint joined the Turbo project, they brought Vansah for Jira Test Management, a testing tool they had developed in-house, along with the necessary support to manage the testing process. They established a mature reporting system that provided actionable information to ensure successful releases.
Sarah Morgan, head of the Program Management Office, commented further that “the relationship with Testpoint can best be described as collaborative. We work together as partners, rather than a business- supplier relationship.”
“They are interested in developing a real relationship to both fully understand our business and investigate all the possible methods they can employ to provide our business with unique solutions.”
~ Sarah Morgan
The Results
Testpoint has Increased IT delivery for the business by 100% in comparison with previous projects’ delivery.
- Testpoint Reduced the delivery time by 50%
- Quality Posture consistently released to production at a 90% pass rate, with Zero priority 1 or priority 2 defects in production
- Consistently delivered testing services below 15% of the project’s CAPEX (Capital expenditure), year on year.
- This is way below the 22% average percentage of IT budget allocated to Quality Assurance activities, according to the World Quality Report 2021 by CAPGEMINI (ANZ region)
Conclusion
As the interview came to an end, Jonathan concluded with the following encouraging remarks:
“Testpoint has provided an exceptional level of service to our organisation, ensuring we are always on top of the testing process and its progress, and that we have the information we need to enable the removal of any blockers to the testing process in a timely manner. Additionally, they have made numerous recommendations in the course of our engagement, identifying areas for continuous improvement and mapping out a clear path towards the implementation of those recommendations”.
