Crowd testing remote: Our trainees and working students are once again chasing bugs

It’ time for some testing! As in the SCM crowd testing two years ago, this time it was up to our trainees and working students to log onto the platform and put the system through its paces. The big difference? This time, we’re testing from home. 

Several of our trainees and working students spent three days intensively studying our SCM solutions in the context of crowd testing. The participants from various departments thereby put on their customer and supplier glasses. Some of them have just recently joined SupplyOn and are using the solutions for the first time. Others have been with the company for a while and now have the opportunity to take an extensive look at the SCM processes as part of the testing. Whether discovering new things or taking a closer look at familiar processes: The working students and trainees learn a lot and are driven by the desire to trick the system and find bugs. Amazon vouchers —for the people with the most identified bugs—further increase their motivation.

How is crowd testing done?

Due to the current office rules, the testing is carried out remotely. In order to ensure that all participants have the same level of knowledge, Laura begins with a presentation introducing the common demand and supply processes. After the basic knowledge of SCM processes has been established or refreshed, the administrative details are clarified:

• How should the bugs and suggestions for improvement be recorded?
• Who can the participants address if they have questions?
• And how will the winner be determined at the end?

And then things get started: the trainees and working students get to work and give their all to find a bug.

Bugs found, testing successful – what’s next?

The trainees and working students were in fact able to successfully identify the one or the other bug and also make suggestions for improvement in some places. Afterwards, the product owners discuss the results and decide together who among the testers took the first three places and thus emerged as the winners of the crowd testing. Their results were recorded and distributed to the responsible product owners, who will rebuild, prioritize and optimize the scenarios.

Why is crowd testing so valuable?

Miriam, Manager Product Development for the SCM area for SupplyOn and initiator of the crowd test reveals: “In addition to standard test automation, it is important to let less experienced users test the system from time to time. Since they don’t work with the solutions on a daily basis, they have a different perspective on things and often find bugs that would remain hidden from the experienced eye. The first impression of the system is worth its weight in gold. It exists only once and you can’t recreate it.”

What’s in it for the participants?

Apart from Amazon vouchers worth 100, 200 and 300 euros for the winners, participants gain an impression of how the solutions for the individual SCM processes work and are linked with each other on the platform.

The participants rate the testing very positively:

Even before the actual testing started, the detailed explanation of the SCM solutions and the process types in the kickoff meeting gave me great theoretical insights, which not only helped me for testing, but also significantly enhanced my general understanding of SupplyOn’s solutions.

When it came to the real testing, I needed a bit of time at the beginning to navigate through the QAS landscape and to check out the different test users. However, in the end I was happy to have found the one or the other usability bug.   

Dejan Ljatifi, Trainee, IT Operations, SupplyOn GmbH

Testing has enabled me to gain a deep insight into the wide-ranging application landscape of our company. I also enjoy looking for errors. To see afterwards how these errors have been eliminated is a great feeling.

I personally think that it is important to organize such testings, as it is the easiest way to avoid “operational blindness”. Furthermore, it is the best way to replicate the behavior of unskilled users.

Tim Cremer, Working student, PMD SRM, SupplyOn GmbH