Vital UAT testing brings investment bank one step closer to transformation

Overview:

• Customer: A growing investment bank based in the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius was in the midst of an overall transformation project.
• Challenge: The bank required UAT testing in order to move their major project forward, and looked to Quinnox for the needed expertise and skills.
• Solution: A strategy for successful UAT execution was devised by the Quinnox team, which included domain-led expertise, three-tier review of test ware, impact analysis, and other testing needs.
• Results: UAT was completed to ensure business confidence in the project, which included the first run of executable test cases finished ahead of the cycle schedule.

Business need:

Mission-critical UAT hindered by enormous challenges

A growing bank on the island of Mauritius had an ambitious plan to transform their core IT system, making substantial investments in technology integration with the ultimate aim to improve upon customer service, operations, competitiveness, and risk mitigation processes. Dubbed project “Flamingo,” this large effort was focused on making big strides in four areas – business, operations, service and technology.

Of course, no system transformation can move forward without successful execution of crucial UAT. Having worked with the bank in other capacities, Quinnox was naturally chosen to perform UAT services (among other testing roles) in parallel with the larger overall transformation project.

However, a long list of challenges immediately presented themselves in four areas:

• Test initiation and planning: Many requirements were incomplete, incorrect, mismatched or inconsistent. System integration testing (SIT) code was not suitable for UAT, as well as other SIT-related issues. An overall lack of planning, business involvement and delays added to challenges.
• Execution: A high number of test cases, a high carryover from previous cycles, over 20K of defects, poor-quality fixes, batch constraints and other technical issues persisted. There were also various delays, lack of testing environment availability, and collaboration obstacles.
• Resources: Acquiring immediate resources need for single-wave deployment of all applications was a formidable effort. Engaging business users and training gaps were also persistent issues.
• Reporting: Challenges were related to ALM, reporting in multiple applications in several countries, managing stakeholder expectations, customization, and the prospect of managing complex and huge data across three releases.

Solution:

Big bang approach to transformation hinges on effective UAT

The team immediately put UAT on the fast-track to overcome all challenges and meet deadlines. Requirements and processes were scoped, and it was determined that UAT execution would address the implementation of 26 applications that covered 9 key processes and 24 lines of business (LOB).

In addition, the overall project would use a big bang approach, which meant that UAT would be even more critical to Flamingo, since users would need to be on the new system immediately versus a phased or parallel adoption. There was little room for error, so the Quinnox team devised a comprehensive strategy with critical tasks organized into four key areas – planning, execution, reporting and governance.

A UAT plan was created that focused on domain-led testing, a three-tier review of test ware, and addressing each service individually. A plan was put in place to base testing on role-based business and process flows, and to allow for impact analysis for change requests and preparedness.

An execution approach was devised that addressed all aspect of application performance, as well as processes across applications. Attention to critical reporting tasks as part of the plan would ensure accurate metrics. And, rounding out the solution, all areas of governance – SIT, operational, tactical, strategic, risk management, defect analysis – were included in the UAT roadmap.

Benefits:

Successful UAT helps growing bank stay on its transformative journey

This methodical UAT approach helped the growing bank continue on its path towards IT transformation. Business confidence was gained with testing of applications, interoperability of implemented products, channels and interfaces, and end-to-end business functional flow. Integrated, collaborative and coordinated execution comprehensively covered all in-scope processes across applications.

Best of all, a first run of executable test cases was completed ahead of the cycle schedule, allowing the SI partner ample time to provide fixes. In addition, a number of value-added UAT tasks were achieved:

• Inconsistencies in process catalogues were pinpointed, and the bank was advised on process gaps and cross-track requirement conflicts.
• Prioritization of defects and go-live analysis – views of requirements, processes, interfaces, critical functionalities, app-specific and SAP BO reports, file transfers, and qualitative analysis.
• The team supported the bank in mapping requirements to processes, monitoring and measuring the performance of various systems, and validating integration of interfaces and applications.
• Our proprietary Transactions-to-GL-Recon Tool was used to speed up the reconciliation testing process.
• Quinnox helped optimize the use of available resources, licenses, and tools for maximum operational efficiency, providing training as needed.

In addition to UAT, as the bank’s sole testing partner, Quinnox helped define the overall testing strategy for Flamingo. This ensured a clear plan for each cycle, testing task alignment with the project roadmap, and accountability for unforeseen changes, delays and other challenges.

Benefits by the numbers:

• 29 applications in UAT scope
• 9 process groups covered
• Coverage of 24 LOBs
• Over 20,000 defects addressed
• 2,945 incidents raised during 3 simulations