QualityAssuranceTestAutomationUAT
Founded in 1966, the Australian Computer Society (ACS) is the country’s largest professional body for the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector, supporting over 40,000 tech professionals across business, government, and education.
As the digital demands of members evolved, so too did the complexity of maintaining and upgrading the ACS website. With upgrade initiatives and day-to-day operations running simultaneously, ACS needed a structured approach to quality assurance. Here’s an overview of how our team helped.
Reduced number of defects
Documented, risk-aligned test strategy
Consistent, reusable testing templates and artefacts
Structured UAT and PVT cycles
The ACS website plays a vital role in delivering services and information to its members. However, at the time of engagement, ACS was facing a critical challenge: two high-priority delivery streams without a formal testing structure.
Despite the business importance of both streams, there were no foundational test processes or governance structures in place. There was no formal test strategy to align testing to business goals or risk appetite, no test planning, and no regular test status reporting existed to guide decision-making. User Acceptance Testing (UAT) and Production Verification Testing (PVT) were being attempted, but they operated without standardised processes. While these activities were managed, they lacked the structure required to deliver reliable outcomes.
This limited approach left ACS exposed to significant risk. Any failure in regression testing, particularly around critical functions like payment processing, could impact revenue. Even more damaging was the risk to member trust if poor user experiences or defects made it to production.
The operating environment further amplified these risks. The ACS website carried high business impact and was subject to compliance considerations, despite minimal available requirements or acceptance criteria to guide testing. The internal quality assurance (QA) team was small, with staff dispersed across Australia, making coordination and consistency even more difficult.
At the core of the problem was a clear capability gap. Internal teams were stretched thin and lacked the specialist QA leadership needed to bring structure, discipline, and alignment across workstreams. There were no test managers to drive governance, no shared artefacts or templates to ensure consistency, and no process in place for embedding best practices.
Effectively, ACS needed a partner who could take ownership, implement a scalable testing framework, and uplift internal capability. That’s where Planit came in, bringing the leadership, experience, and frameworks to establish immediate stability and long-term capability.
Planit responded by placing a senior Test Manager into ACS to lead, structure, and coordinate all testing activities across both BAU and upgrade streams.
Our team began by engaging with business and delivery stakeholders to understand priorities. ACS had defined a prioritisation framework, classifying tasks into P1 (critical), P2 (high), P3 (medium) and P4 (minor), which guided how our Test Manager structured delivery.
We also worked with ACS to define a test strategy aligned to their goals, project priorities, and level of acceptable risk. From there, we introduced structured test plans and templates, coordinated UAT and PVT cycles with defined ownership and approvals, and provided regular reporting to improve visibility and decision-making across the organisation.
One of our priorities was improving traceability. When mapping test cases directly to business requirements, we ensured that testing efforts were traceable, auditable, and defensible. We maintained detailed documentation in tools ACS already used (JIRA and X-Ray), giving the internal team immediate access to test data, reporting dashboards, and results at every stage.
The results were immediate and enduring. With proper test cases documented in X-Ray, and test plans being shared and executed across teams, defects were significantly reduced in production environments.
UAT and PVT processes were no longer afterthoughts. Instead, they were structured cycles with formal checkpoints, sign-offs, and clear accountability. The clarity Planit brought to the QA process improved communication between business and delivery stakeholders, while our structured reporting enabled informed decision-making across multiple levels of the organisation.
For the internal QA team, our involvement brought much-needed relief. With a growing library of reusable templates, artefacts, and best practices now embedded within ACS, the team was able to shift from firefighting to focusing on value-adding activities.
The business also reported improved confidence in digital delivery. Across multiple team meetings and one-on-one conversations throughout the 9- month engagement, stakeholders consistently called out the impact of Planit’s support and leadership.
With a solid foundation now in place, ACS is better positioned to scale its quality practices and embrace future enhancements with assurance and agility.
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