User Acceptance Testing

(CSTP Elective)

This tutorial counts as one day of training towards the Certified Software Test Professional requirements.

All too often the products delivered by IT fail to meet the customers expectations, especially with regard to the quality of the product. An effective User Acceptance Testing process addresses this issue in two very powerful ways; 1) by ensuring that the customer is fully engaged in the Requirements process and 2) by having the customer confirm the functionality and performance of the product prior to delivery. This seminar looks at the business issues which drive the need for a fully functional User Acceptance Testing process and looks at the components of such a process. It is designed to help improve existing User Acceptance Testing programs as well as provide a roadmap for those which to establish the function.

Seminar Objectives:

This seminar will focus on the procedures for creating an effective User Acceptance Testing process. As a participant you will be able to:

· Develop an understanding of the basic concepts of User Acceptance Testing and how they apply to the software life cycle
· Identify key activities which make up User Acceptance Testing
· Prepare a Business Event Model and related User Acceptance Tests
· Integrate User Acceptance Testing into the overall project plan
· Demonstrate a return on investment on User Acceptance Testing deployment
· Demonstrate improved quality of deployed software using User Acceptance Testing

Course Outline

This seminar will demonstrate the process for establishing an effective User Acceptance Testing (UAT) Process.

Understanding User Acceptance Testing (UAT)
- Software Life Cycle Fundamentals
- Working with processes
  - Process Definitions
  - Process Management
- Role of Testing in the Life Cycle
  - Quality Assurance
  - Quality Control
- What is User Acceptance Testing
Business Process
- Understand the process
- Identify the participants
- Identify triggers and controls
- Improve the process
Business Event Model
- Interacting with the process
- Defining boundaries
- Driving out ambiguity
Project Plan
- Developing the plan
  - Building organization commitment
  - Managing the resources
  - Ensuing participation
- Working with time, cost and quality issues
- Reporting
- Using project management tools
Test case development
- Getting started in Requirements
- Test approaches
  - On-Off
  - Parallel
  - Time Series
  - Regression
  - Break/fix
  - Stress
  - Test first
- Monitoring results
- Benchmarks for completion
Managing UAT
- Environment and staff
  - Establishing the test environment
  - Using a test environment
  - Developing testing resources
  - Leveraging skills
- Time and Budget
  - Estimating the testing effort
  - Tracking the testing effort
  - Working with the project plan
- Training and tools
  - Training for testing
  - Testing as training
  - Using test tools
Why projects fail
Building the Business case of effective User Acceptance Testing
- Measurement
- Cost of Quality