User Acceptance Testing for Business Analysts

1 - Software Testing - the Basics

• What is software testing and why is it important?
• Typical problems that we encounter with software
• The Cost of Quality (CoQ) and the cost of finding defects too late
• The “V” Testing Model
• The four stages of software testing (Unit, Integration, System, User Acceptance Testing)
• Testing best practices

2 - Understanding the Tester’s Terminology

• What is UAT and what is the role of the Business Analyst?
• Characteristics of a good UAT tester
• The tasks of UAT testing
• The UAT documents
• Common terms & definitions

3 - The UAT Planning Process

• The importance of UAT planning
• What is a UAT Test Plan?
• The six steps for creating a UAT Test Plan
• General testing tips (see Testing Guidelines and Techniques document)

4 - UAT Test Coverage

• What is UAT test coverage?
• Using a Requirements Traceability Matrix
• Set the testing scope – what to test and what not to test
• The UAT Test Coverage Matrix
• Verifying Non-functional requirements (i.e., performance, security, usability, availability, etc.)

5 - Creating and Executing the UAT Test Cases

• What are the goals of UAT testing?
• What is a UAT Test Case?
• How do UAT Test Plans and Test Cases relate?
• The four steps for creating a UAT Test Case
• Business Use Case and define test data for a portion of the steps
• Preparing, running, and documenting the UAT Tests
• General testing tips and techniques

6 - Verifying the Test Results

• Documenting UAT test results
• What is a defect?
• How to log a defect?
• The “bug” lifecycle
• Writing a good problem description
• Taking screen snapshots
• 10 tips to avoid writing bad defect reports
• Signing-off on UAT

7 - Testing Vendor-Supplied Applications

• Challenges of testing vendor-supplied applications
• Challenges to the business
• Eight steps for testing vendor-supplied applications