Axa. Olivier De Lissnyder. UA Leerstoel - Testing - May 2011

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Testing @ Axa

UA Leerstoel - Testing - May 2011

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Agenda



AXA in the world, and in Belgium



IBT² @ AXA Belgium



Testing @ AXA Belgium



Testing Approaches



Test Roles

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A fresh look at AXA



The AXA Group in key figures

 

80 million customers

 

present in 56 countries

 

91 billion euros in revenues

 

4 billion euros in underlying earnings

 

981 billion euros of assets under management

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AXA In Belgium



AXA in Belgium

 

6,256 employees (exclusive distributors included)

 

more than 3.1 million customers

 

375 million euros in underlying earnings

 

4.7 billion euros in insurance turnover

 

23.4 billion euros of total consolidated balance sheet

for AXA Bank Europe

 

an activity model integrating bank and insurance

 

central services supporting all local activities of AXA in

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AXA in top 5 In Belgium

Ranking 2008 Group % market in turnover

% market in

non life % market in life

1 Fortis 22.3 17.2 25.0

2 AXA 16.1 21.8 13.2

3 Ethias 12.6 13.3 12.2

4 KBC 12.2 9.4 13.6

5 _Dexia 9.5 4.3 12.2

Source: Assuralia 2009: 2008 market shares



AXA is one of the 5 leading insurance

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Agenda



AXA In The World, and in Belgium



IBT

²

@ AXA Belgium



Testing Approaches



Test Roles

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IBT

²

Structure

•

Global Business Roadmap

•

Business Architecture

(incl. Process)

•

Change Management

•

Method & Coaching

•

Portfolio Management

•

Project Management (prepare & deliver)

•

Application management

•

Application Architecture

•

Specialized Architecture

•

Solution Architecture

•

Risk & Security

•

Technology oriented

delivery teams

•

Testing

•

Production monitoring

•

QoS improvement

•

IT Infrastructure management

•

IT Services transition

•

IT Security

•

Budget & Costing

•

Sourcing

•

Reporting

•

Capacity management

•

People processes

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Key features of AXA Software Engineering

Axa IBT

²

has chosen to work with



Delivery Centers

  Industrialized approach to deliver components of high quality.

  Members of Delivery Centers are technological specialists (Silverlight, Java, ETL) in charge of implementing the business requirements.

  Specialization means more efficiency – Reduced time to market, reduced cost

  Delivery Centers Services, Delivery Center Front End, Delivery Center Testing,…



Releases

  Most applications and projects depend on each other, changing one application can have impacts on the entire AXA system environment.

  Working in releases means to put all the changes together in production, after careful synchronized testing. This increases quality and availability of production.



Off shore partners

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Agenda



IBT² @ AXA Belgium



Testing Approaches



Test Roles

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What is Testing?

 

Delivery Center Testing is an independent Test Team

 

14 Test Coordinators

 

35 Test Analysts

 

40 Off shore testers

 

4 Test managers

 

Defines, monitors and controls its own processes

 

Supported by HP Quality Center as Test Management Tool

 

Supported by HP Quick Test Pro as Test Automation Tool

 

Supported by HP Load Runner As Performance Testing Tool

 

N° of defects found last year – 8.781

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Benefits of IBT

²

organization for testing



Delivery center

- 

Test professionals are continuously gaining on-the-job experience in testing

- 

They are now involved in an education program aimed at improving their

testing skills.



Off shoring

- 

Off shore provides capacity required to execute tests and report defects

- 

Test execution is made off shore at off shore costs.

- 

Good test professionals are scare people, therefore a dedicated

investment in knowledge acquisition is needed in order to keep their skills and motivation high. This investment would not be possible in an organization

where testing is not made in an independent team

- 

Good test professionals are rare and testing is a matter of absorbing peaks of activity in last weeks before Put in Production. Off shoring the test

execution and detailed design, offers the possibility to handle multiple parallel testing peak periods while keeping the costs under control.

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Benefits of IBT

²



Release mode

- 

Imposes code freeze period 2 weeks before Put in Production in order to execute regression and performance tests. All developments must be finished 2 weeks before Put in Production

- 

Imposes a scope freeze 12 weeks before Put in Production. Scope of testing activities is known and can be planned in advance.

- 

Regression tests and performance tests could be forgotten in the rush to production, therefore a freeze period of 2 weeks is welcome. These are

important tests to execute as a

regression or slow performances in an application could have much more impact on the users than a defect on a new functionality

- 

The test team has a few weeks of relative calm to organize itself in order to have a planned and controlled test session. Most often it will eventually turn to an uncontrolled rush to testing, but we want this to happen as late as possible in the project in order to minimize risks of putting defects into production.

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Added-value of testing



Why spending money on testing before Put in Production?

 

Any defect found AFTER Put in Production is found by many customers

-

Bad Imago !

-

Loss of new business !

-

Financial errors !

-

Loss of time by the broker

-

Customer not returning

 

Multiplied by the number of customers finding the defects at the same time.

 

Multiplied by the internet-speed !



This cost is most often hidden, because difficult to compute,

but it exists

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Benefit of IBT

²



Let’s assume the

(very)

conservative hypothesis that a

defect in production costs to the company 400

€

more than

the test activities would have cost to find it.

 

8000 defects found per year * 400

€

= 3 200 000

€

saved by testing activities.

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Added-value of a dedicated test team

Decreasing Cost of Testing Improving Quality of Production

  Deeper and Broader Test Coverage

  Systematic Regression Testing

  Improved Reviews (V-model)

  Off-Shore component takes detailed test design and test execution in charge

  Test automation is made possible

  Re-use of test scenarios



Some organization are not working with an independent

tests team

 

Tests are created and executed by the business analyst, system analyst or

representative of ‘the business’.

 

There is no opportunity to capitalize on experience and trigger a continuous

improvement loop.



A dedicated test team can dedicate time on continuous

testing improvements

KPI:

N° defect prod/N° defect in test

AXA: 4%

KPI:

Euros spent on test activities/ N° of

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Agenda



IBT² @ AXA Belgium



Testing Approaches



Test Roles

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2 Different Testing Approaches



Large Projects are tested in a systematic, rigorous way

dictated by the V-model.

-

This increases the probability to put in production on time a high quality

software because such a rigorous approach allows to better control the

schedule and scope uncertainties, the dependencies with other projects/

applications and the test efforts spent.

-

But it has a cost !



Small demands and small projects are tested in a less

rigorous, more agile way.

-

Limited risk level, limited uncertainties

-

No or limited dependencies

-

Minor test effort invested.

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Project Testing

  Validate that the application delivered meets the

business need

  Verify that the design

documents are implemented as specified in the

application

  Verify that the critical features of the application are still working fine (Functional + Performance)

Requirement Acceptance Tests

System Tests

Technical Design Integration Tests

Implementation And Unit Tests

Regression Tests

Functional Design

  Out of Test Process Scope

  Acquire project knowledge and identify incoherencies thanks to

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IDEA CONCEPT INCEPTION ELABORAT* CONSTRUCT* TRANSIT* Warranty

Go “concept ” 0 0 Go “concept ” 0 0 Go “mobilize ” 1 1 Go “mobilize ” 1 1 Go “delivery” 2 2 Go “delivery” 2 2 Go “execute” 3 3 Go “execute” 3 3 Go “production” 4 4 Go “production” 4 4 End “project” 5 5 End “project” 5 5

RUN

OFFER

PROJECT

AM

•  Support Solution Design

• Define Test Strategy

•  Finalize collaboration agreement with

project. Commit on:

•  Scope •  Cost •  Schedule •  Quality Software factory 1101 0011 0001 0110 1000 11

BUILD : Coordinate and deliver

• Testability Reviews

• Technical Design

•  Coding

•  Integration testing

•  Maintenance

TEST : Coordinate and deliver

•  System Testing

•  Regression and Performance Testing

•  Support to User Acceptance Testing

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Small Demands Testing



1 Week Cycle Approach

 

Once per week, new demands are included in the test session.

 

The demands are tested as soon as possible, with a light formalism



Focus On Regression Tests

 

During the 2 weeks preceding the Put in Production, the applications are

completely tested for regression, on a pre-production environment containing the

entire release to be Put in Production.

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Agenda



IBT² @ AXA Belgium



Testing Approaches



Test Roles

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Test Roles



Test Coordinators

  In charge of the daily management of the test sessions : day to day schedule, facilitation, fire-fighting, reporting, defect tracking, administration in Quality Center

  This is an organization role, not a « content » role. The goal of the Test coordinator is to « make-it-happen » that requires pro activity and drive.



Test Analysts

  In charge of the test coverage The test analyst identifies the tests to be executed and the expected results that will guarantee that the major risks are covered by test scenarios.

  This is a « content » tasks, the test analyst has a deep knowledge of the application/project and guarantees the quality of the test coverage.



Off Shore Testers

  In charge of the detailed design of the test scenarios identified by the Test Analyst, test data identification and test execution.

  This an execution job, that requires the ability to absorbs peaks of activity and good handling of stressful situations

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Agenda



AXA In The World, and in Belgium



IBT² @ AXA Belgium



Testing Approaches



Test Roles

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Challenges Facing a Test Delivery Center



Testing is between Development and Put in Production

  Testing is on the Critical path of the project and is the step just before the Put in Production  (very) high pressure to shorten/skip the testing

  Testing is not perceived as a « productive » task. Testing does not add lines of codes or provides analysis documents that describe a solution to a problem.

 (very) high pressure.

  Axa Answer: release mode and mandatory freeze periods, off shore testing to add capacity, rigorous reporting based on functional risks taken.



Testing finds defects in the code BUT also in all other

processes

  Requirements Engineering, Requirement Management, Configuration Management, … are also generating defects. The earlier in the life cycle a defect is generated and not discovered, the most it costs to correct.

  Testing could be perceived as a rude guest that underlines dysfunctioning. The tester

needs good relational and communication skills in order to be perceived as a ally in the quest for good quality in production.

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Challenges Facing a Test Delivery Center

 

Skills shortage, competence erosion

 

Test specialist are scare. The developments techniques are speeding up in order

to shorten the time to market and applications are evolving fast in order to meet

market needs

 

Axa answer: My.Future program (upskills and career moves development

program) for test analysts, investments in knowledge acquisition and off shoring

of test execution

 

If testing gets a cold, it could be because other

processes have the flu…

 

Requirements unclear



generates false defects, rework in test design

 

No design



No testing ! (V-Model )

 

Uncontrolled changes



uncontrolled rework (budget!), false defects

 

Late deliveries, uncompleted code baselines,…

 

Testing is at the end of the project, it can be crippled by all the other preceding

processes if they dysfunction.

 

Axa Answer: QA team accompanies all the processes in order to make sure they

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