Bug Blog

Problem

An Australian retailer with over 50 stores was upgrading its e-commerce platform and hiring a full-time software testing lead. They spent three months interviewing and had made an offer to a candidate who accepted with a four-week notice period. A few days before they were scheduled to start, the candidate pulled out - leaving the client in a difficult position. There were a few months of tickets in the backlog which required testing. This created a development bottleneck, and the team couldn’t afford to spend additional time hiring a suitable candidate.

Solution

Bugwolf provided their software testing staff augmentation solution within three days’ notice. We had a meeting with the client on a Wednesday, agreed to proceed with the work on Friday, and had the team up and running the following Monday. The client was provided with two dedicated software testing leads for the price of one, who was embedded in the team and able to hit the ground running. The team worked remotely, and were on board across the client’s tools quickly, removing the complexity of introducing new tools into an existing team and processes. 

Result

The client was able to recover their project timelines, getting their release cycles back on track, and their product into the hands of their customers on time. Bugwolf was able to transfer software testing best practices across their team, tools, and processes, freeing up their developers to focus on new features rather than testing backlog. This created value and time efficiencies at different levels of the organization. The client was so happy with the results, they recently expanded the Bugwolf team by one head to three full-time software testing leads, further accelerating their delivery timelines and releases. 

Conclusion

Bugwolf’s flexible approach to contracting and engagement meant our client could scale up and down their capabilities within a moment’s notice. This eliminated the chance of the client being in the same predicament in the future or having expensive full-time resources sitting on the bench during slower periods. The progress created a positive feedback loop and lifted team morale. The client was able to expand their development team as testing was no longer in the way, and they won’t need to lose time hiring again.

Summary

When a software release is delayed it has ramifications all the way up through the organization, impacting marketing, sales, and operations. It makes much more sense to be able to scale software testing resources up and down quickly. Hiring one full-time resource and burning them out with a large backlog of tickets is often a short-sighted strategy. There are also time and costs to consider when expanding and reducing headcount. Software testing is typically the last step in a feature being released, and by overcoming this bottleneck, your team is able to unlock greater efficiencies.