Managed Testing Service for Implementation of Dynamics 365 for a Leading Mutual Insurance Company

Background

One of the UK’s leading insurance companies went through it’s largest ever, multi-year Digital Transformation program implementing Microsoft Dynamics 365. The client incurred several delayed deadlines for the implementation of D365 due to the quality concerns, this was impacting other projects and proved to be extremely costly. On-going changes both internally and externally driven were causing significant quality challenges. The complexity of testing D365 and the necessity for application experts was underestimated.

Challenges

• Existing Test Strategy was not fit for purpose
• Test cycles were lengthy, unstructured and predominantly manual
• Large amount of data related issues were impacting project success
• Defects found late in product lifecycle and often by business users in production
• Lack of Dynamics 365 knowledge and experience within Test/QA teams
• Insufficient test coverage resulting in increased risk to business continuity
• Inefficient test processes causing significant delivery bottlenecks
• Significant regression impact from continuous updates and releases; key functionality found to be broken after routine 3^rd party releases

Solution

• Carried out a QA Gap Analysis for the D365 programme and provided recommendations and definition of a project Road Map
• Defined the overall D365 Program Test Strategy & Approach
• Fine-tuned and implemented an Automation Test Strategy which was more aligned with business requirements
• Improved test & delivery efficiency through automated practices
• Quality governance, Management and co-ordination of Test Team
• Improved usage of ALM & Test tools within the programme
• Facilitated D365 & QA best practice knowledge transfer
• Tailored test execution and management reporting of Test Progress
• Implemented a risk-based approach to testing

Impact & Outcomes

• Improved business confidence in product quality
• Improved test efficiency by 35% through best practices
• Enhanced test coverage through structured QA processes
• Reduced cycle times by 2 weeks by addressing impact of down-time & release delays
• Achieved Evergreen & Change Readiness through the use of a refined and bespoke D365 test automation approach
• Better business alignment and reduced defect leakage leading to significant improvement User Confidence
• Provided optimised structure and stability to the project