When companies begin to use the Hexawise test design tool, they generally have a single issue in mind that they want to address: the test execution phase is taking too long, documentation and maintenance is growing too complicated with increasing system complexity, or their testing coverage is insufficient. These companies quickly realize, however, that the benefits that Hexawise provides extend far beyond the boundaries of their initial problem. To illustrate this, we will examine the benefits achieved by a multinational investment bank that utilized Hexawise in the testing and development of several internal projects. The bank found that the use of the Hexawise tool resulted in dramatic benefits across the testing process, which became quicker, more effective, and better understood. Measurable benefits were seen in the test planning, test execution, and test maintenance phases, all with a significant impact on the company’s bottom line.

>50% time savings during test planning

During the test planning phase, the company utilized Hexawise to achieve significant time savings. Automatic test creation and documentation slashed the amount of time it took the team to create a test suite from 3 days to only a single day. This Hexawise-driven acceleration continued throughout the testing process: the ease and speed of updating tests, which is performed at the model level in the Hexawise tool and then immediately reflected in every test case, reduced time spent on maintenance by over 90% when compared to manually implemented updates.

100% coverage in fewer tests

Although the pace of the testing process quickened, the company did not have to sacrifice any testing coverage. On the contrary, the Hexawise generated tests were more thorough: one set of Hexawise tests covered 100% of all system interactions in slightly fewer tests than the initial, manually selected batch of tests, which covered only 60%. Another set of tests provided the same level of coverage as the initial batch in only 1/6th of the number of test cases. This reduction in size, but increase in thoroughness, of the testing set led to a test execution phase that was both more efficient and more effective.

Increased stakeholder confidence

In addition to increasing the coverage, both overall and per test, Hexawise also allowed the company’s QA teams to gain precise control over their testing coverage. Intuitive and automatically-generated coverage charts provided insights that allowed the teams to strike a balance between reducing the number of tests and achieving a high level of coverage. In addition to informing decisions, these coverage charts, which clearly demonstrated the efficiency and effectiveness of the Hexawise-generated tests, increased stakeholder confidence.