Codifying
User Acceptance
Testing
Goals
Improve product quality at Redpanda by implementing User Acceptance Testing as part of the engineering and development process.
Roles
I initiated, defined and led the cross-functional alignment with Engineering and Product leadership to make User Acceptance Testing part of the development process.
Outcomes
User Acceptance Testing has recently become part of the engineering development process.
Project details
01
Problem
Redpanda's product quality was not high. One critical factor was that work was deployed without being reviewed by Design or Product. This coupled with the lack of QA resulted in buggy releases with low fit and finish. User Acceptance Testing was a process I had introduced previously to help address this issue, with varied team adoption.
02
Solutions
To help raise product quality I codified User Acceptance Testing as part of the engineering development process. This entailed:
- Writing a definition of and guidance for User Acceptance Testing
- Sharing and getting alignment from Product and Engineering leadership
- Working with program management to create a process using the engineering tools (Jira)
- Sharing the process at a Product and Engineering All-Hands
- Adding a User Acceptance Testing page to the company Wiki
03
Outcomes
User Acceptance Testing has recently become part of the engineering process. It is too early to determine the effect of this on product quality, however, I am confident that having someone outside of engineering with a user-focused mindset testing the product will raise the quality of the product and user satisfaction.