Guardian transforms QA to streamline AWS + API migration

The QA team at Guardian exemplifies the company’s long-standing commitment: “We hold ourselves to very high standards.” They’re continuously optimizing the way they test all the new software and enterprise applications that 27M customers and 9,500 employees rely on. A few years ago, they undertook an extensive QA transformation to eliminate “pockets of poor quality” which led to unpredictable schedules and instability in production. This initiative combined five disparate QA teams—each with their own policies, procedures, processes, tools, and metrics– into a shared service known as Enterprise Software Quality Assurance(ESQA). This standardized all QA activities into a reliable, repeatable, scalable center of excellence.

Upon learning that a major application modernization effort was on the horizon, Robina Laughlin (Assistant Vice President, IT Quality Management) immediately recognized the risks. They faced a massive shift to AWS and APIs alongside a transition to SAFe. ESQA’s people were up for the challenge, but their existing tooling wasn’t fit for the task. They needed to equip their best-in-class QA team with the flexibility of a best-in-breed testing toolchain built for modern application delivery. They needed to move faster while supporting more (and more complex) projects—and do it all without driving up costs.