EXTERTEST

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the key expert of the EU-funded project Eastern Partnership Civil Society Facility – Regional Actions. The project started in 2017 and is set to finish in late-March 2021. It’s fully funded by the EU and implemented by a consortium led by GDSI Limited, which is an Irish company. It has several areas of work, but, in general, it supports civil society in six Eastern partnership countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine. We’re helping them create new digital solutions and content, and organize annual hackathons. That was my sphere of activity, and it’s where we worked with EXTERTEST.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with EXTERTEST?

In 2018, when we delivered our first big hackathon in the region, we realized that the existing voting-app solutions on the market didn’t meet our requirements, and we needed to create a custom one. We needed QA for it, and we started looking for a company that could do it quickly.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

EXTERTEST helped us test our vote app. It was a pretty simple solution, and the task was quite straightforward. We had clear descriptions of what our users could and couldn’t do.

In 2019, we were about to launch a new course on our platform, using the Moodle system. It was a very complicated course on storytelling, with many modules and system requirements. The team asked me about QA, and that’s where EXTERTEST came in.

Our third project was around a special activity for civil society activists. Six digital solutions were adapted for the needs of a new country. We developed six new IT products in five weeks, and we needed someone to do what’s called “extreme testing”. We needed prelaunch and user-acceptance testing done within a week, which EXTERTEST did. They worked with the development teams of those six products.

What is the team composition?

I was the manager of the first and third projects, and I’ve worked with Sergii (Founder & CEO) directly. They had at least two persons testing each of the solutions during the last assignment.

How did you come to work with EXTERTEST?

We have an office in Kiev, and we found them through a recommendation from the IT community in Ukraine.

How much have you invested with them?

The first contract was for under €1,000 (approximately $1,200 USD). The second and third projects cost around €10,000 each (approximately $12,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with EXTERTEST in late-2018 or early-2019, and we finished in May 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

I was really impressed with the work done. Although it was a small contract, they worked carefully and did all the best possible checks. The communication between the development and design teams and EXTERTEST was very good. Everything was immediately understood, and the project was launched successfully.

The first solution is posted on our GitHub, under our project name. We first used the app in May 2019, and we’re still using it. I heard really nice words from the teams EXTERTEST worked with.

How did EXTERTEST perform from a project management standpoint?

They have a very strict approach in terms of client communication. Bugs are tracked through a document-sharing system. They discuss our preferred way of doing it at the beginning of the project, and at least two teams used Google Docs. They logged bug counts, comments, expected outcomes, real outcomes, statuses, and so on. We used Slack and Skype for communication.

What did you find most impressive about them?

In my opinion, it’s their capacity to work independently. They spared me a lot of work I would’ve otherwise had to do.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They need to promote themselves better.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Clients should decide on the main outcomes and let EXTERTEST handle the minor things.