Planning
Once the scope and strategy have been determined, map it out by a time unit that best suits the UAT manager, users (participants) and business objectives. It will need to be flexible to change as factors will inevitably impact it.
If you’re adopting a looser ‘crowd’ style strategy, the allocation of individual tasks becomes less of an issue in the first instance, but the monitoring of who has done what (or has not been done) becomes more important.
The crowd approach broadly involves making test cases available to anyone with the time and skills to carry them out and monitoring the results with a pre-determined execution and pass level. The advantages of this are that it is more dynamic and resource availability determines the progress with a greater sense of visibility of the whole project creating greater accountability.
Outline the test plan.
Outline the strategy into weekly segments.
- How realistic is this approach?
- What are the risks?
- Where are the compromises?
- Get feedback from product teams, business users and stakeholders for the time process.
Collaborate with User department heads.
The collaboration will allow for faster access to resources as and when needed through early planning of who will do what, when and what is needed.Determine resources needed
Assess the resources needed
- Where do they need to be implemented?
- Skills associated with the resources
- How available and accessible are the resources
- Can they be supplemented?
Assess the role and impact of interfaces and other systems
Any capable and meaningful application and software undergoing UAT will connect internally and potentially externally to other applications. This can complicate the change, which extends the coverage and nature of test cases and resources you may need to assess the impact of changes, as many businesses operate over several integrated solutions.
Things to consider
- Will the impact on other software mean more teams need to be involved?
- Do you have existing linked test environments to support this end-to-end testing?
- The impact of changes on test cases and data
As with any testing process, not all phases need to be implemented within every project, but each should be considered to achieve the best possible outcome.
Exploratory testing
Exploratory testing is essential for ensuring high-quality and successful UAT. The UAT’s value as a whole may depend on many factors, not least the influence you have over the final users. The less influence, the more exploratory testing you should conduct to better understand the results and their accuracy.
Communicate the plan to managers and individuals
Hold briefing sessions as a group
Inform individual business units
Consider how they will be notified of changes and progress
Provide access to key stakeholders to central dashboards and metrics
As with any testing process, not all phases need to be implemented within every project, but each should be considered to achieve the best possible outcome.
Download your UAT Test Plan Template right here.
To check out the other sections in our UAT guide, hit the links below –
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