Aritzia

The Challenge

The IT team at Aritzia was using isolated spreadsheets to manage testing for multiple business and vendor-driven change projects, ranging from SAP enhancement pack upgrades to new interfacing application deployments.

Testing spreadsheets were shared and co-managed by IT professionals and functional end-users at multiple locations.

Discrete spreadsheets used for test management were not only time-consuming to share and populate with data, they also became un-scalable as the team grew and more systems needed to be tested for each change.

In addition, reutilizing test scenarios depended on key users’ quality of input. Finally, as spreadsheets were managed and maintained on a per-project basis, there was no central visibility into overall testing coverage and methodology. “As projects discontinued, testing spreadsheets were also disconnected as there was no central hub,” says RJ Caswell, Director of Business Applications at Aritzia.

“Auditing our test results or trying to review our overall test coverage was very much like looking for a needle in a haystack,” he adds.

The Solution

Aritzia deployed Panaya as their central testing solution. Projects managed through the Panaya platform included EHP0 SPS 15 upgrade to EHP7 SPS5, a human resource information system (HRIS) Workday implementation, multiple Supply Chain & Distribution center projects and a new Point-of-Sale implementation. Overhauling their entire test management methodology, Aritzia has shifted away from disparate, un-auditable spreadsheets to full visibility and optimization capabilities on a unified, central platform.

The Panaya solution provided the team at Aritzia with advanced test scoping capabilities as early as during the planning phase. Additionally, with Panaya’s built-in defect communication features, the Aritzia team was able to reduce overall testing time and defect correction period.

Panaya Test Dynamix delivered the combination of impact analysis and testing integrated in one platform. “We saw tremendous value in using Panaya when it came to narrowing down our scope for the upgrade project,” says Mr. Caswell. “The project went live on time and under budget!” He adds.

The Results

By using Panaya Test Dynamix to automate corrections and test orchestration, Artizia is now able to shorten project duration and reduce business disruption by 54% on average. For example, the EHP0 SPS 15 to EHP7 SPS5 upgrade timeframe was reduced from 1,607 to 731 hours (saving 876 hours).

“Before Panaya we were re-purposing the reporting spreadsheet into an issue-resolution spreadsheet,”

says Mr. Caswell. “This was messy at the very least,” he adds.
Andrew Dobson, Artizia’s Applications Development Team Lead names reusability of tests and the ‘Business Function Activation’ feature (enabling a business function-specific impact analysis) as two of his favorite Panaya features.