We've said it before, the year 2020 was a "bug. How did the Testersuite Team experience this strange year? What were the consequences? During the annual customer afternoon in December, Testersuite director Frank Paymans shared his experiences. Read the conversation with Frank below.
What effect has the pandemic had on Testersuite?
We got off to a good start last year. In March came the first lockdown, which shocked everyone. What would this mean, both privately and professionally? We noticed that commerce was slowing down because many organisations were standing still. Fortunately, this did not last long. We were already used to working at home, but working full-time at home was something else. On top of that, many new colleagues started who had to be trained online. That was quite a challenge for the team. A new balance had to be found, but in the end it worked out very well.
Were there also positive effects?
Sure! Testersuite is a test management application in the cloud that supports online working (testing). When all stakeholders in a test cycle are in different locations you just need such an application. This has allowed us to welcome many new customers. Our customers and prospects all switched to working online and this made some things even easier. Think of online demos, implementations and consultancy. Making even smarter use of online tools such as Teams, Asana and Pipedrive helped. As a result, we made a lot of efficiency gains.
What have been the most important developments in the past year?
The team has grown considerably. In February, we expanded within the sales team and three new developers started within the development team in 2020. With many new people, a new dynamic arises and it takes some time to find the new balance. This also involves safeguarding our culture: professionalism, openness, respect, trust and not being afraid to make mistakes. This has also resulted in new things. For example, we now have a book club in which professional literature is discussed, we are more active in disseminating knowledge and we also record this within the framework of our ISMS (Information Security Management System).
And if you look at the processes?
After the implementation of our ISMS in 2019, we will be certified for ISO27001 and NEN7510 (specifically for healthcare) in early 2020. In addition, we are continuously improving our processes. We have further implemented Agile working, optimised sprint planning & refinement, introduced retrospective sessions, further implemented code reviews and unit test automation, and improved numerous other things. In addition, we have further improved other processes such as commerce, marketing and administration.
What were the highlights of commerce?
After the 'new normal' had taken hold, we brought in a lot of new customers. That went exceptionally well. The awareness of software testing and testing in the cloud increased exponentially. We also maintained our sector focus, which bore fruit. We also started working more intensively with partners such as Salves.
Looking at the Testersuite application, can you give some examples of key developments?
We have continued to improve communication within the Testersuite application. This also applies to the automatic workflows and emails behind them. Hereby, the emails got a whole new design. Within the reporting module, new features have been introduced that facilitate mutual communication within test teams.
Furthermore, we have significantly extended the API to make it even easier to link with test automation tools. Several customers are already using this to, for example, get test results from automated test scripts back into Testersuite. Several extensions have also been made to our standard JIRA connection. For example, it is now very easy to retrieve JIRA user-stories from different JIRA sprints in existing test cycles in Testersuite.
With respect to customizing within Testersuite , much has been changed and optimized. The power of simplicity is even more evident.
Looking ahead to 2021, what are the plans?
The number of customers is growing rapidly. The development of the Testersuite application is accelerating, the demand for consultancy is increasing and with it the pressure on support. This means that we need to further expand the team in 2021. We are also looking for more cooperation with existing and new partners regarding customer support. In doing so, we will of course monitor the quality of our consultancy.
Our foreign customers are also increasing. But we will continue to focus on the Dutch market for the time being. There is still enough to do. And last but not least...we will celebrate our tenth anniversary in 2021. We will not let that go by unnoticed either!
