Testing: A Critical Component to Building your IT Solution....

Any IT solution that is implemented without the proper amount of testing performed throughout the project is a definite recipe for disaster. Testing is an ongoing process – both formally and informally. It happens in development, it happens in the actual testing phase, it happens just prior to deployment and it happens post-deployment.

Without a well-thought testing effort, the project will undoubtedly fail overall and will impact the entire operational performance of the solution. With a poorly tested solution, the support and maintenance cost will escalate exponentially, and the reliability of the solution will be poor. Therefore, IT Solutions from a sales, solution stage need to realize that the testing effort is a necessity, not merely as an ad hoc task that is the last hurdle before deployment.

Solution Managers should pay specific attention to developing a complete testing plan and schedule. At this stage, the Solution Owning authorities should have realized that this effort would have to be accommodated within the project budget, as many of the testing resources will be designing, testing, and validating the solution throughout the entire project life cycle—and this consumes work-hours and resources. The testing effort begins at the initial project phase (i.e., preparing test plans) and continues throughout until the closure phase.

Testing Workload

It is essential to conduct tests under realistic conditions and therefore it is important during build of your solution - appropriate efforts (involvement) of testers, functional / technical consultants are estimated beginning from Project preparation phase itself and most importantly allow time for repetition of those unsatisfactory test results in the project schedule.

Acceptance Testing

Some sensible ground rules for acceptance testing are necessary and need to be established before any testing commences. Typically, some of these rules should include the following:

• Test the solution as the developers build it. This way, errors can be corrected immediately.
• Involve project members who understand design and user specifications.
• Determine what is included within the test and what is not.
• Involve users of the project who know how the system will be used.
• Test to see that interfacing the new solution to the current infrastructure has no unexpected consequences.

Types of Testing

There is enough material published on types of testing .. Depending on the context of your engagement be sure to estimate work-hours for each possible scenario of testing and defect resolution some examples :  Configuration testing ,Development Unit Testing, Interface Testing,  Batch Testing, Conversion Testing, , Security Testing,  Regression Testing, Integration Testing, User Acceptance Testing,  Performance and Load Testing,  Backup and Recovery testing, Cutover Testing, Pre Production Testing

Evolving Business Need…

A growing trend. Today, many large enterprises are embracing a “Testing center of excellence” model by forming teams whose charter is to accelerate the deployment of innovation and ensure the quality of business processes and systems. Typically, these teams fall within an IT or Quality organization and are managed as a budgeted line item. This trend marks a radical departure from the past where business process validation and software quality assurance were managed on a “one-off” project basis – or not at all.

 What is triggering the growth in ‘’Testing’’ centers of excellence?

Now more than ever enterprises are tasked with introducing innovative technologies and new systems at record speed – S/4 HANA, mobility, portal, and cloud technologies are in demand and driving the pace of innovation. This pressure is forcing enterprises to validate business processes and systems at faster rates, even as budget and staff constraints push IT teams to reduce costs. The trend also means increased emphasis on end-to-end business process validation to minimize Business disruption when technology changes are introduced. Shortcuts can lead to quality issues and operational problems that organizations need to avoid.