Safira Energia implements automated testing culture with Objective’s consultancy

Objective Test Flow was applied end-to-end and resulted in a 57% bug reduction in four months

To deliver increasingly complete and innovative solutions to its clients, the company needed to improve its system development by implementing an automated testing culture within its IT team.

With over 15 years of experience in the market, Safira Energia offers a complete ecosystem of electric energy, including generation, management, commercialization, and consulting.

Challenges impacting efficiency
Safira Energia’s digital products are market differentiators, but the company faced challenges related to software quality and operational efficiency, directly impacting its competitiveness and the launch of new features.

The Safira Solar+ business unit had a high number of development and system evolution demands but faced challenges in standardizing development processes. This frequently led to critical bugs, particularly in sensitive areas like billing.

These issues created obstacles in customer relationships and revealed gaps in the company’s quality and testing practices. The development team, mostly composed of new developers, struggled to ensure the stability and functionality of the systems, resulting in a continuous cycle of rework.

The implementation of a culture
To address these software quality challenges, Safira Energia turned to Objective, a Brazilian multinational specializing in digital experiences and business transformation, to implement an automated testing culture. The applied methodology was Objective Test Flow, which integrates automated testing throughout the development cycle, ensuring that no code is integrated without passing rigorous tests.

This journey involved training in techniques, processes, and quality architecture; complete and instant automation of data sets, environments, integrations, and simulations; tool support and frameworks for test-driven development; as well as the implementation of an end-to-end approach to enable the continuous delivery process.

According to Denilson Santos, CEO of Safira Solar+, one key differentiator was the formation of an internal team composed of key developers selected by Safira Energia and Objective specialists applying the pairing technique. This technique had specialists and developers working side by side, writing tests and sharing best practices in real-time.

“This close collaboration allowed Safira Energia’s developers to gain knowledge and experience in unit and integration testing, which are essential to validate new code before the production phase,” he said.

Over approximately seven months, this process was implemented, along with alignment ceremonies and new quality indicators, gradually expanding the developers’ participation throughout the process. The close collaboration between the Safira Solar+ team and Objective specialists resulted in a significant cultural shift, improving system quality and increasing customer satisfaction.

Results of an effective culture
The implementation of this new culture directly impacted the number of bugs, which saw a 57% reduction within four months of the consultancy’s involvement. Additionally, test coverage improved, reaching almost 78% in UI and nearly 29% in the backend, representing an increase of almost nine percentage points.

The implementation of the Automated Testing Culture at Safira Solar+ triggered a transformation in processes and team maturity. The number of tests gradually increased month by month. Over the course of seven months, 647 automated tests were applied in the development cycle. However, the main achievement was that team maturity evolved to the point where everyone gained the knowledge to apply tests autonomously.

Among the improvements implemented were the development of integrated tests, migration to more modern technology versions, creation of tests to prevent critical billing errors, and data optimization to enable metrics and indicators for the development team.

“The leadership of Safira Solar+ was crucial in driving the evolution of team maturity through the implementation of the Automated Testing Culture. This cultural change involved the entire team in valuing and applying tests in daily work, gaining maturity, autonomy, and greater efficiency in software development,” highlighted Marcelo Luis Walter, Head of Consulting at Objective.

Does your company face recurring challenges with bugs and rework in development teams? Contact our specialists and learn how to implement an effective automated testing culture in your organization!