Tauranga Software Test Professionals Meetup | July 2025

The Software Testing future in Tauranga is good – and well informed.

Key Software Testing leaders in the local community present a well-grounded and yet aspirational future for their teams.

The Tauranga Software Testing community is a special one for me personally. The site of our first ever meetup back in 2019, I’ve had the absolute pleasure of seeing the community come together and evolve over the last 6 years. And this most recent event – hosted by the good team at Mercury Energy – was well timed in terms of hearing how local Software Testing leaders taking stock of their current state, their team’s journey to date, and the projection for their Test Practice into the future.

Our first speaker was Garth Blake – Test Practice Manager for Mercury Energy. Called into the speaker role in the last two weeks and operating without a co-speaker due to ill health, Garth spoke off the cuff and very much off the heart, talking to the journey that the Mercury Energy Test Practice had had since the acquisition of Trustpower by Mercury Energy and how that has shaped their vision for their future. Along with the brand adoption and change as a result of the merger, Garth spoke well of the immediate challenges facing the team once the merger took place. For example:

• The merger created an immediate and urgent need for systems consolidation as well as the adoption of the Mercury Energy brand by Trustpower. That signalled an immediate spike in workload for the Software Test practice – and over a compressed timeframe to meet market expectations.
• In parallel, as a result of the merger, three geographically distinct Software Testing teams had to be merged.
• With the merge, came a need for a common approach to testing and a common testing toolset.
• And the establishment of an enterprise test practice to appropriately govern the testing function within Mercury Energy, as well as represent the Software Testing team into the rest of the organisation – particularly those that the Test Practice engaged with.

Between Garth and the newly appointed Environment & Quality Assurance Lead (Neil Crichton), an effective Test Practice was quickly established:

• The three separate testing teams were merged into one.
• A weekly 3pm all hands call was set up to both ensure that current practices were standardised, and that the teams all had an effective way to get to know one another.
• Sense was given to all of the test automation tools at use within Mercury Energy – Katalon, Playwright and C# were all retained as test automation tools and use cases for the application of each were discussed, created, agreed and implemented. The varying tool set supported a wide range of test automation engineers – from those from a manual testing background wanting to use low code / no code test automation platforms through to those automation engineers with a programming background.
  • Together with a move to a team of hybrid testers – those that can test manually *and* automate where needed.
• BDD selected as the testing method to be implemented at Mercury Energy, and appropriate training sourced and delivered.

Time has been invested and taken in settling in the changes, supported by a raft of new appointments – both new to the Testing Practice and existing Test Practice team members into new roles reflecting their skill level within the team.

In terms of the future for the Test Practice, it is very much based on the journey to date:

• BDD will be used for an initial project so that lessons can be learned from the use of BDD within Mercury Energy, ahead of being rolled out wider across the team.
• AI is being actively tried. Mercury Energy’s focus on AI is an enabler for people to improve their productivity and free time for more complex tasks to be delivered by the Test Practice. AI will be very much a productivity tool, not a tool to drive down the size of the Test Practice.
• A focus on automating the large suite of manual regression tests, to reduce both testing time and testing duration. Delivering higher velocity releases with a real focus on risk-based testing and automation being used to check that existing functionality is preserved.
• A software testing team of hybrid testers – able to use some or all of the automated testing tools available as well as be good manual functional testers
• Projects being used to upskill people in different and new testing tools, techniques and methods.
• Assessing if the move to ‘automate first; is both achievable and will add value to the work programme.

Garth is always looking at the size of the Test Practice. His advice to the local software testing community is to very much maintain a sense of curiosity – that alone is a great foundation for any tester.

Following Garth was Berny Roux, Head of Quality Assurance and Release Management for Zespri International. Organisationally, Zespri International has had a much different journey than Mercury Energy. No recent history of local acquisitions yet a major digital change in the implementation of a SAP-based business platform that will support almost all of the Zespri International business processes – a digital change that has had a profound impact on the way that Zespri International’s Quality Assurance is approached, managed and developed. Berny’s Test Practice strategy and goals relate directory to the strategy and goals of the current digital change for Zespri International, which are:

• Revolutionise global supply – build a world class value chain and deliver service excellence.
• Create the product portfolio of the future – enhance core platforms, execute commercialisation with excellence.

Supporting this, the Test Practice within Zespri International has undergone an evolution. Initially the focus was on test automation and test maturity:

• 20% automation of high priority regression tests to increase testing efficiency.
• Lift test maturity based on TMMI.
• Retain high levels of Quality Assurance team engagement.

Recognising the value of people in the Test Practice, Berny has always had team engagement as a core indicator for the Test Practice.

More recently the Test Practice focus shifted, primarily because of the potential value and impact of AI. Berny has dropped the focus on test maturity:

• Embed automation and investigate AI:
  • 20% automation of high priority of regression tests.
  • Retain quality assurance team engagement levels although not as high as previously recognising the impact of change on the team.

My personal experience is that Zespri is well into the AI investigation and adoption, looking to leverage AI for the productivity uplift on the quality assurance function. And this investigation and adoption is well reflected in the Zespri Internal Test Practice future state vision – Embed Automation, Invest in AI (including Agentic AI):

• Successfully complete their AI Proof of Value (anecdotally time savings of 49% are being seen).
• Successfully complete autonomous testing Proof of Value.
• Successfully complete Agentic AI Proof of Value.
• Upskill the quality assurance team in AI and Autonomous Testing.
• Maintain the quality assurance team engagement score at the same or higher than current values.’’

Zespri International’s view of their future state Test Practice is one that is automated, leverages AI for productivity increase and ensure that their team is both AI aware and fully engaged with the direction that the Test Practice is taking, being supported with a training and mentoring programme. Like Garth, Berny’s message to the local testing community is to be curious and to explore things. This attitude and outlook is a key attribute of a good quality assurance team member. Being focused on the potential value of AI, Berny and Zespri International are building on this theme by encouraging current and potential team members to:

• Ask ‘what work tasks are waste and can be removed or automated via AI’
• Book time to learn every week

Combined, both presentations generated a lot of conversation over the post-presentation drinks and nibbles, with us as organisers having to nudge people out the door at 7pm.

A huge thanks to both presenters, and to our hosts Mercury Energy. Berny’s presentation can be seen here <Zespri Testing Meetup Presentation 202506>