Are you up to the Test?

 

Today’s instalment in the “Implementing Success” series discusses the importance of testing during project implementation as well as how to ensure you are prepared for testing to make the most of it.

How successful you are as a Systems Implementer (SI) often comes down to how much value your client gets out of the system you just implemented for them. This might seem a little unfair, since SI’s don’t often own the product that they implement and so have no control over it’s overall functioning. However, what they do still have responsibility for is ensuring that it does at least do what they’ve said it will – that is, that the system is configured in line with agreed-upon and well-defined requirements.

Let’s look at this from a customer’s point of view. As a customer, you will be looking to lean heavily upon your chosen SI throughout your implementation, to provide you with the knowledge and expertise that you need to make the most out of your new tool – and you should. A good SI will do more than support your implementation – they will partner you in all aspects of it, and should even go to great lengths to ensure that you’re comfortable throughout the process. However, it is worth mentioning that there are some things your SI simply cannot do for you.

If there is one thing that I have learned from all of my experience across many, many systems implementation projects, it’s that the biggest difference between a successful implementation and a not so successful one is the quality of the testing that’s completed before launch. This is the thing that your SI will not be able to do for you. Why? Because only you will know the ins and outs of your unique business and how they should be catered for. In reality “Best Practice” can only take you so far.

A well-tested, thoroughly examined system with high levels of integrity will also set you up for success in a large number of other important project dimensions. Change management, adoption rates and business efficiency are all things strong testing will elevate. This is due to the following principle: through thorough testing, you ensure not only that the system works – but that it works well. If you have a system that does everything you promised it would (and more!) when you go live, people will be more likely to use it and it will be more likely to actually make your business more efficient as desired.

There are other, less obvious reasons why a well-thought through testing period can bring you greater success in your implementation projects. It gives you a chance to integrate your team into the new system to build familiarity and skill with it before go-live. It gives you the opportunity to start driving change through the organization through early adopter support and change champion initiatives, building excitement and optimism for the launch. It provides a platform for discussion and refinement that will ultimately lead you to realising more value from the system you are now implementing.

So why do so many fall down?

The hard thing about testing of course is that it’s, well, hard – and when I say hard, I really mean that it’s just plain hard work. You see, to test effectively you have to extrapolate beyond the present moment and try to encapsulate all of the complexities of the business-as-usual world right into your testing window – and all in a very short period of time. Not only is this taxing, laborious and often pretty complicated, trying to distil the essence of all the possible transactions you could end up performing, but it requires a huge amount of coordination between all of your various business SMEs and the project team to extract the detail of the business scenarios you’ll be running and document the necessary, expected outcomes. It requires coordination with your in-house testing team to get them up to speed with how to complete testing in a new system and how to record, document, report and then act upon the results of this testing. It requires your testers to have completed the appropriate training before you start testing so they can successfully translate the written scenarios into system functions in order to actually be able to run tests (this one is always overlooked!).

As someone who has been around the block a few times on a number of different types of implementation projects, I can tell you with some confidence that this is the part that you as a customer will find the most challenging. Why? Because it is hard to remember the value of testing when you’re deep in the weeds of running an actual project and it’s even harder to keep driving your team forward in preparing for it. Because it never seems like it is worth all of the effort it demands and because it always seems like you have more time than you actually do to get ready for it. 

My cautionary tale then, if you like, is to warn you not to listen to these feelings when they come to fruition – and they will. Testing should be within your top 3 project priorities from DAY 0. Not day 1, that’s already too late – DAY 0. Get yourself an experienced test lead (at least one), define your strategy, training, toolsets and resources as soon as you can and then prepare yourself for some long, tedious days (and some long, tedious nights!). If you think I’m just hyping this up for the drama, I will forgive you – but trust me, I am underplaying this one if anything. Full belt and braces are required to achieve testing success.

Just ask yourself this question: when it comes down to your next implementation, will you be up to the test?