Overview
The Crown Estate is a collection of lands and holdings in the United Kingdom belonging to the British monarch as a corporation sole, making it “the sovereign’s public estate”, which is neither government property nor part of the monarch’s private estate. The Crown Estate manages a diverse portfolio of assets, including urban properties, rural estates, coastline, and seabed. The organization’s primary objective is to generate revenue for the UK government by maximizing the value of its assets.
In recent years, The Crown Estate has undertaken various projects to transform its properties into sustainable and resilient assets that create value for communities, businesses, and the environment.
Challenges
- It was the QA team’s responsibility to be connected with each team involved in the project which proved much of a challenge in identifying, highlighting, and solving any discrepancy.
- The Crown Estate manages a diverse range of assets, including urban properties, rural estates, coastline, and seabed. This was one of the big challenges for the QA as each type of property may require a unique set of testing scenarios.
- The Crown Estate’s sustainable and responsible property management approach requires manual QA to ensure that properties are resilient to environmental factors and that sustainability initiatives are effectively implemented.
- The Crown Estate’s digital platforms and software systems are complex and require regular testing to ensure they are secure, reliable, and user-friendly.
- Ensuring inclusivity for all users, including those with disabilities, was a top priority for The Crown Estate’s digital systems. Therefore, accessibility testing played a significant role in the overall testing process.
- Testing the CMS for functionality, usability, and compatibility with other systems and the web app testing was another big challenge for the QA.
Solution and Strategy
- To overcome these challenges, our team developed a comprehensive strategy that involved manual testing of both the CMS and web app.
- Our QA team developed a comprehensive testing plan that covered all types of properties. This plan included separate testing scenarios for each type of property, as they required a unique set of testing scenarios.
- We created Test Cases for all the Epics/Stories/Tasks in TestRail.
- We performed smoke, regression and sanity testing on different browsers and operating systems to ensure compatibility across different browsers, operating systems, and devices.
- The QA team developed testing scenarios that covered sustainability factors and conducted regular testing to ensure that the Crown Estate’s properties were resilient to environmental factors.
- The QA team performed comprehensive testing that covered all aspects of the systems. This included separate testing scenarios for user interfaces, security protocols, functionality, and content management systems (CMS).
- The team developed testing scenarios that covered accessibility compliance and usability for all users, including those with disabilities. They conducted regular testing to ensure that the Crown Estate’s digital systems were accessible and inclusive to all users.
- The QA team did comprehensive testing which included separate testing scenarios for content types, search engine optimization, integration with other systems, and the changes made on CMS were correctly reflected on the front-end.
Conclusion
- Our QA team for the Crown Estate project successfully addressed various challenges related to testing the organization’s diverse range of properties, sustainability initiatives, digital systems, and accessibility requirements. By developing a comprehensive testing plan, collaborating with other teams within the organization, the QA team ensured that the Crown Estate’s projects were thoroughly tested and met the highest standards of quality.
- Overall, manual QA played a crucial role in ensuring that the Crown Estate’s projects were delivered with high quality and met the expectations of stakeholders. Our QA team’s dedication, expertise, and commitment to quality assurance contributed significantly to the success of the Crown Estate project.