Workday Test Lead

WPP is the transformation company. We use the power of creativity to build better futures for our people, planet, clients, and communities.

Working at WPP means being part of a global network of more than 100,000 accomplished people in 110 countries. We create transformative ideas and outcomes for its clients through an integrated offer of communications, experience, commerce, and technology. WPP and our award-winning agencies work with most of the world's biggest companies and organisations – from Ford, Unilever and P&G to Google, HSBC, and the UN. Our clients include 61 of the FTSE 100, 325 of the Fortune Global 500, all 30 of the Dow Jones 30 and 62 of the NASDAQ 100.

WPP has headquarters in New York, London and Singapore and a corporate presence in major markets worldwide. We are quoted on the London Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange. Key performance indicators for WPP (2020) include Billings of £46.9bn and Revenue of £12bn.

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Why we're hiring:

At WPP, technology is at the heart of everything we do, and it is WPP IT’s mission to enable everyone to collaborate, create and thrive. WPP is undergoing a significant transformation to modernise ways of working, shift to cloud and micro-service-based architectures, drive automation, digitise colleague and client experiences, and deliver insight from WPP’s petabytes of data and breadth of expertise.

WPP are underway with a significant programme of technology-enabled change across our Finance, Professional Services and People function and this role will be instrumental in ensuring that our programme is understood, welcomed, and enthusiastically adopted through the business as we progress.

In this role you will own the test strategy and execution across our technical and functional landscape.  You will actively engage with and build a highly productive and trusted working relationship with senior stakeholders and with members of the programme team.

You will be a key member of the Workday @Scale program test team, providing your expertise on developing and agreeing a comprehensive test strategy for our Workday enabled transformation journey. You will bring your leadership skills to establish world class approaches to testing throughout the program lifecycle, such that at each launch stage, WPP can be confident that our product has been thoroughly tested and is ready for service.

Workday @Scale is a large-scale program that will replace some of our core technology and also influence the ways of working for many of our colleagues at WPP. This flagship program will see Workday deployed across our global landscape to address the technology needs of Finance, Projects and our People function – so essentially it touches all of our employees to some degree. The key to this program is that technology is an enabler for change, it’s at the heart of what we do, so it is vital that the business has confidence that the technology we are deploying is fit for purpose and all defects are either remedied or understood and accommodated.

This is a contract role for a period of between 9-12 months.  Hourly rate and can be based in any state where WPP (or one of it's operating companies) has a presence.  

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What you'll be doing:

• Lead the design, development, and delivery of a comprehensive test strategy for the Workday modules/ areas
• Establish and lead transformation testing aligned to the Workday @Scale program – with focus on delivering a repeatable test approach, test phases and test work streams to support multiple deployment waves over several program years
• Develop and deliver a suite of test collateral as the base method for each deployment wave – augmented by business need across waves.
• Lead and manage testing across all test phases (functional & technical) to ensure test collateral is aligned to technology design, process flow and outcome objectives
• Manage all test defects and appropriate resolution through each test phase – ensuring all documentation / decision logs, test outcomes and test results are captured and appropriately logged.
• Communicate test strategy/plans, test cycles and test progress at each relevant stage
• Support the Program Test Lead to ensure the test team is adequately resourced, trained and supported to execute a comprehensive and effective test process.
• Lead/chair test phase test entry and exit review milestone meetings
• Manage and support the various suppliers, 3rd Parties and business throughout the testing process.
• Setup and chair defect triage meetings throughout testing

What you'll need:

• An exemplary people leader who role models through their own behaviour and actions, embedding change by inspiring, coaching, holding themself and others to account and setting the right inclusive culture for team and our partners
• Outstanding test leadership experience in a complex, federated organisation, combined with impeccable business judgement
• Extensive experience leading testing gathered on at least two full Workday projects and global transformations, coordinating and supporting all stakeholders including management of 3^rd party vendors.
• Strong ability to lead, inspire, engage, and coach a diverse team and create an inclusive culture across geographical boundaries
• Strong skills in developing and communicating a comprehensive test strategy, test plans and test management approach to multiple test cycles across technology, integrations, data quality and data completeness in partnership with functional, technical, data and 3^rd party peers.
• Experience of successfully delivering a test workstream as part of technology-enabled change programme with specific emphasis on Human Resources on a global scale across multiple waves.
• Expertise in consulting, guiding, and providing assurance in environments that are often uncertain, complex, and ambiguous
• Develop trusted relationships with key stakeholders in IT and across the wider WPP business, investing time to understand their needs, and helping to breakdown any siloes or resistance to deliver desired business outcomes
• Strong human-centered change management skills required to drive the right culture, mindset and behaviour shift around strong controls and risk management
• Excellent experience and demonstrated use of test tracking and defect management tools (i.e., Jira/Zephyr)
• Experience and knowledge of Automation test tools

Who you are:

You're open: We are inclusive and collaborative; we encourage the free exchange of ideas; we respect and celebrate diverse views. We are accepting: of new ideas, new partnerships, new ways of working.

You're optimistic: We believe in the power of creativity, technology and talent to create brighter futures or our people, our clients and our communities. We approach all that we do with conviction: to try the new and to seek the unexpected.

You're extraordinary: we are stronger together: through collaboration we achieve the amazing. We are creative leaders and pioneers of our industry; we provide extraordinary every day.

What we'll give you:

Passionate, inspired people – We promote a culture of people that do extraordinary work.

Scale and opportunity – We offer the opportunity to create, influence and complete projects at a scale that is unparalleled in the industry.

Challenging and stimulating work – Unique work and the opportunity to join a group of creative problem solvers. Are you up for the challenge?

WPP is an equal opportunity employer and considers applicants for all positions without regard to race, color, religion or belief, sex, age, national origin, citizenship status, marital status, military/veteran status, genetic information, sexual orientation, gender identity, physical or mental disability. We believe in creating a dynamic work environment that values diversity and inclusion and strives to recruit a diverse slate of candidates to help us achieve that goal.

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