New digital directive challenges the departments

With over 6,300 employees and 15–20 IT projects running at any given time, Kungsbacka is one of the largest municipalities in the Gothenburg region. In 2022, a new digitalization directive was introduced, requiring departments to build their own capacity for innovation and digital transformation. The central digitalization unit, where Marie Stenbom works as an IT project manager, has been supporting this transition.

“The municipality is divided into nine departments, each with its own political leadership. Our goal is for every department to manage and ensure the quality of their own IT projects. But not all of them will be able to hire their own IT project manager or test leader, so we need to build internal skills and create more standardized ways of working,” explains Marie.

The old way: time-consuming and disorganized

Previously, IT projects were managed centrally by the digitalization unit, which developed a project methodology, support frameworks, and templates. However, the process for managing requirements and testing still relied heavily on Excel, leading to duplicated work and inefficient processes. With the departments now expected to take ownership of their IT projects, the challenge became how to manage these projects efficiently while maintaining quality.

“It quickly became messy and inefficient when everyone handled quality assurance in their own way. And with our old approach, you needed prior experience to manage testing effectively. We needed a tool to collect all the information in one place and work in a more standardized way,” says Marie.

Bringing order with Reqtest

To help departments work more efficiently and build their competence in quality assurance, Kungsbacka introduced Reqtest as a central tool for managing requirements and testing.

“We needed something simple that would allow us to get started with testing quickly, while still letting us work professionally and systematically with quality assurance across the entire municipality,” Marie explains.

The rollout began with a pilot project: implementing a new system for the Competence Center, which supports processes for new arrivals and employment services. Marie describes how the digitalization unit systematically guided the department through the new process step by step:

“We started by setting up a template project in Reqtest based on our past experience. Then, we created a specific project tailored to the pilot’s needs. We imported the requirements from the contract and linked them to test cases, ensuring that each requirement had at least one test case. The test leader planned the tests and followed up on bug reports and retesting.”

A smooth start, even with inexperienced staff

The quality assurance process for the new system at the Competence Center is now well underway. One of the biggest successes, according to Marie, has been how quickly the test team was able to get up and running.

“Even though the project had an inexperienced test leader and involved 15 testers from the department, everything went smoothly. We gave them a 1.5-hour introduction to Reqtest, and after that, they’ve been self-sufficient. Since the tool is so easy to use, we’ve only had a few questions,” says Marie.

Reqtest has also made it easier to coordinate requirements and testing, helping to ensure the project’s quality. By identifying potential issues early, the team has been able to address them before they affect the timeline or budget.

“With Reqtest, we have a clear overview and can spot serious issues early. If we were still emailing Excel files back and forth, this would have been nearly impossible,” adds Marie.

Reusing work and expanding to more projects

Once the new system goes live, the plan is to continue using Reqtest in the operational phase. All the work done in Reqtest – including test cases, results, and bug reports – will be reused, ensuring a smooth transition from project to operations and maintaining quality over time.

Following the success of the pilot project, the next step is to expand Reqtest’s use to more projects and operational areas. The goal is to create a unified, efficient process across the municipality.

“I’m convinced that as we use Reqtest in more projects, we’ll see even greater benefits. That’s why we now want to expand its use to see how it can help us further standardize our processes and improve results,” Marie concludes.