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Kellanova logoKellanova

Owner and operator of global Kellogg’s brands, Kellanova boosts software testing productivity with OpenText™ Software Delivery Management

Kellanova logo

About Kellanova

Kellanova is a leading company in global snacking, international cereal and noodles, plant-based foods, and North American frozen breakfast. It is powered by iconic, world-class brands such as Pringles, Cheez-It, Pop-Tarts, Special K, and Coco Pops.
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  • Employees:
    23,000+
  • Countries:
    180+
  • Based in:
    US

Summary

Challenges

  • Broad set of applications and integrations required rigorous testing to ensure proper functioning.
  • Diverse teams used differing tools.
  • Needed to support both hybrid and waterfall methods.

Solution

  • Covered all the bases across Agile and waterfall.
  • Helped spin off the new business.

Results

  • Increased efficiency and productivity
  • Provided a global view
  • Ensured a smooth transition

Challenges

  • Broad set of applications and integrations required rigorous testing to ensure proper functioning
  • Diverse teams used differing tools
  • Had to support hybrid and waterfall methods

Kellanova is a leading company in global snacking, international cereal and noodles, plant-based foods, and North American frozen breakfast, with iconic, world-class brands. Formed from the 2023 split of Kellogg into two public companies, Kellanova is powered by brands such as Pringles, Cheez-It, Pop-Tarts, Special K, and Coco Pops.

To support sales of its products in more than 180 countries worldwide, Kellanova’s 23,000+ employees rely on a broad set of software, including both in-house and third-party applications. Keeping these applications current, reliable, performant, secure, and properly integrated with each other depends on rigorous testing by IT specialists worldwide and in the company’s Quality Engineering (QE) and DevOps Center of Excellence (CoE).

Venu Cherukuri, global senior manager of the Quality Engineering and DevOps CoE, Kellanova, said, “Our role in the QE and DevOps CoE is to manage and promote a portfolio of optimized tools to make software and integration testing as efficient and effective as possible. Kellanova is more ‘buy’ than ‘build,’ but testing is testing whether it’s our own software or a third-party product.”

With both waterfall and Agile methodologies in the mix, the Kellanova QE and DevOps CoE must support a broad range of approaches and provide tools that enable flexibility in working practices. Equally, the CoE has a diverse user base that is split between technology specialists and business application owners. So, it aims to offer tools that are highly intuitive and easy to use.

A person working on a laptop

OpenText Software Delivery Management was a very important tool in delivering Spin-Off, which involved around 600 testers across IT-oriented testing, system integration testing, and business user acceptance testing.

Venu Cherukuri
Global Senior Manager, Quality Engineering & DevOps Center of Excellence, Kellanova

Solution

To support ongoing testing activities across global teams for dozens of software projects, Kellanova relies on OpenText Software Delivery Management (ALM Octane)—an on-premises solution that offers a single version of the truth and end-to-end lifecycle management.

Products deployed

Covering all the bases

Venu Cherukuri selected OpenText Software Delivery Management (ALM Octane) following an assessment of tools on the open market.

“We found that there was no other tool on the market that truly did end-to-end lifecycle management for both Agile and waterfall, including DevOps,” he said. “We realized that the OpenText solution could be our single application lifecycle management tool covering both methodologies. It was a no-brainer to make the bold decision and move to the OpenText for all projects.”

All testing managed by the Kellanova QE and DevOps CoE is now in OpenText Software Delivery Management. Waterfall remains the dominant approach to software delivery, although some areas of the business are adopting a hybrid Agile format, in which design may take place in one methodology while development and delivery happen in another. Test quality management—including test cases, test execution, and defect management—represents about 80 percent of the workload, with the remainder being backlog management by DevOps and Agile teams.

The on-premises solution from OpenText supports approximately 200 workspaces at Kellanova, of which 40 or 50 are active at any one time. The company has moved from a project-based to a service-based model for workspaces, which facilitates their reuse.

“The adoption of the OpenText solution has increased significantly in recent years,” said Cherukuri. “We provide support 16 hours a day, five days a week, supporting users in four regions across the globe.”

Helping spin off the new business

Ensuring a smooth division of Kellogg into the Kellanova and WK Kellogg Co businesses required a major testing effort. Venu Cherukuri describes the split—a project named “Spin-Off”—as “inch-deep, mile-wide” in reference to the fact that it necessitated minor changes to more than 700 applications.

In the case of Kellogg’s SAP ERP environment, which was split for ongoing use by both Kellanova and WK Kellogg Co, the changes included carving up the data and user roles. These changes were made and diligently tested in non-production environments for any potential regression impact, with everything managed in OpenText Software Delivery Management.

“OpenText Software Delivery Management was a very important tool in delivering Spin-Off, which involved around 600 testers across IT-oriented testing, system integration testing, and business user acceptance testing,” said Cherukuri. “We consistently used the OpenText solution across the board to manage more than 10,000 test cases.”

A person working on a laptop

One great feature is the application module, which enables us to think about software in terms of the functional breakdown or business process breakdown, then measure quality in line with those criteria.

Venu Cherukuri
Global Senior Manager, Quality Engineering & DevOps Center of Excellence, Kellanova

Results

The OpenText solution provides vital clarity and control for managing testing throughout the software lifecycle at Kellanova, helping application owners ensure that their software is reliable, secure, and offers the right levels of performance.

Increased efficiency and productivity

With this single solution from OpenText for managing all software testing activities, Kellanova is boosting the productivity of both IT and business users, helping them to complete more thorough testing at higher speed. This means that the software released to Kellanova users offers greater reliability, security, and performance, helping the company focus on its core mission of delighting global customers.

“The solution is browser-agnostic, very intuitive, and has simplified some of the things that we traditionally used to do,” said Cherukuri. “One great feature is the application module, which enables us to think about software in terms of the functional breakdown or business process breakdown, then measure quality in line with those criteria.”

Provided a global view

Having extended OpenText Software Delivery Management to a global user base, Kellanova now has a single source of truth on testing. The solution is integrated with the company’s project portfolio management tools—both upstream with the service management tool and downstream with the DevOps toolchain—to enable an end-to-end view of the lifecycle.

“Having a single pane of glass for all testing is a big win,” said Cherukuri. “I like how the OpenText solution enables the concept of an end-to-end value stream from the requirement and idea through to production. It provides fully-fledged quality management with a full, best-practice way of documenting test cases and handling the defect-management lifecycle.

Ensured a smooth transition

During the Spin-Off project, the Kellanova QE and DevOps CoE used the OpenText solution to provide customized reports on status to different teams, slicing and dicing the data to give them the transparency they valued. The solution was the single source of truth for everyone up to the executive level and was recognized by senior stakeholders as making a key contribution to the overall smoothness of setting up Kellanova as an independent business.

“For this huge, 800-pound gorilla of a project, OpenText Software Delivery Management was our go-to for accurate information,” said Cherukuri. “Testing applications for potential impact was a critical element in Spin-Off, and we received recognition for how well-run and well-organized the project was. It was an amazing success story for us.”

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