UAT Definition & Guidance
By Ray Claridge
In my previous post on UAT, I suggested that UAT responsibility should lie with the business user, but can you be sure that they are being thorough enough with their testing?
To help understand UAT, I have put together the following pointers on definition and guidance:
User Acceptance Testing (UAT) marks the transition of functional ownership from Systest to the Business users. The responsibility for UAT resides with the business; however the management and coordination of the process will reside with Test Co-ordinator.
The objective of UAT is to give the business confidence that the development sofwate addresses the specified business requirements and is fit for business purpose. Unlike the other test stages, acceptance testing does not set out to find faults as these should have been identified and resolved in the preceding stages of testing.
The acceptance testers will dictate the test coverage objective, however it is likely to be assessed against the following:-
It is important at this stage to minimise the number of changes taking place to the system. Therefore, any issues raised should investigate to determine if: a genuine defect or an enhancement before attempting to change the software. Changing the software at this late stage could invalidate the previous testing unless thorough regression testing is carried out. It is essentially that the software is deemed ‘frozen’ during this stage of testing and time is set aside for this stage of testing prior to final sign-off and delivery to the business.
Clearly your definition is geared toward an IT setting, where the users and testers reside in the same company.
It's a different situation for a software company. There, UAT usually is executed by the purchasing company, and often has contractual ramifications.
Yes Joe - you are correct! Although, it's not just about performing UAT, it's about the planning side of things. Even with suppling software to an external company I've still been asked to supply test scripts for UAT
I am in a similar scenario as Joe. We work with external organizations to build out RIAs. One way we have combated loops in UAT is by building our user stories and acceptance criteria in our contracts and then conducting thorough reviews of said stories. This helps to mitigate much of the waste that can occur throughout the lifecycle by removing many of the assumptions through conversation. Big fan of your site! Keep up the great posts.