The Case of the Not Yet Ready UAT Environment
Jeri Lykke, Senior Manager, Shared Services and Outsourcing Advisory
Picture this: you’re the client leader of a mid-market, multi-process human resources outsourcing (HRO) implementation. The project has been preceding well with requirements defined, configuration and conversion activities running as planned, and your team has prepared a thorough testing plan and test cases ahead of user acceptance testing (UAT). All of a sudden, the week or day before UAT is slated to begin, you learn the environment won’t be ready because your provider must perform a dependent system upgrade.
Now you have to face your steering committee to explain the delay in testing. Unfortunately, the service provider most likely had been planning the system upgrade for months, but didn’t connect the dots on the effect it would have on your UAT due to its heads-down focus on work it had to perform per the project plan. Poor planning and execution on the provider’s part? Yes, but unlikely that it was an attempt to hide the upgrade, and the resulting UAT delay, from you until the last moment. No provider worth its salt would do this…at least not if it wanted to stay in business. The truth is that mid-market, multi-process HRO implementations are often a complex coordination of multiple applications and environments, none of which are static. Buyers will often spend a good bit of time in due diligence to understand the application and environmental version features and functions with which their program is planned to go live. But what they frequently miss is a process to validate those planned system assumptions throughout the implementation project in order to build in appropriate risk and mitigation strategies.
The project management process should include transparency on the final solution, and early identification of risks and dependencies. And phase exit criteria should include review and validation of these risks and dependencies as the plan progresses.
If this application environment scenario has raised doubts in your mind, please click here to read our article, Cutting Through the Fog: What You Should Know about Cloud Computing and How to Get Started.
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