Service validation and Testing

The purpose of service validation and testing process is to provide quality assurance that the new / changed service delivered satisfies the customer requirements. Validation and testing of service is the most crucial process of a service lifecycle as it helps in identifying errors and bugs in the service created or modified before the service is released to live environment.

Poor testing may result into increasing number of incidents, problems and errors. The cost of fixing bugs and errors post release and deployment is far more than fixing them during testing. Failure to deliver services as desired by the customer would hamper the service provider’s business as well as the customers’ assets resulting into loss of reputation and time and money spent on development of the service. Service validation and testing is a part of IT change management process which enables reduction in errors by adequate testing and validation.

For example, an educational institution requires an online course enrollment site which is password protected. Users can login via their student IDs, select and register the courses of their choice. The service provider must ensure that the password protection meets the management requirements. This assurance is delivered via accurate service validation and testing that ensures that the requirements such as minimum 8 characters for password, combination of alpha-numeric characters.

A well defined service validation and testing process consists of the following activities:

• Validation and test management: Helps in managing risk, identifies issues and provides mitigation plans as these can cause delay to the in delivering the service 
• Test Planning: Develop a test strategy and test plan that would act as an input to testing
• Verify: Ensure that the test design and test plan is complete and accurate
• Prepare test environment: Create the test environment that is similar to the live environment
• Testing: Conduct testing and record the test results. The issues and errors found are also recorded.
• Evaluate: Compare the actual results with the projected results.
• Clean up and closure: Ensure that the test environment is cleaned. Lessons are learnt from previous experiences which help in identifying areas for improvement.

Service validation and testing process provides business value to customers by delivering the service within the estimated cost and timeframe and the assurance that the service is fit for use and fit for purpose. Service assurance is delivered through verification and validation of services which in turn is delivered through successful testing of the service. Manage IT’s Service Validation and Testing process provides this service assurance to its customers through set of sub processes described as below:

Test Initiation:

• Involves creation of defect tracker and test plans which includes functional, integration, system, performance, operational readiness test (ORT) and user acceptance test (UAT) test plans. A defect tracker consists of list of issues / errors recorded while testing of service. It also includes details such as type of defect, severity level and proposed solution to fix the defect.
• The finalized test plans are reviewed and approvals are obtained from appropriate personnel.

Test Execution:

• Functional, integration, system, performance and ORT testing is performed by the tester in the test environment and test results are recorded.
• Post each testing, the defect tracker is updated and approvals are obtained from appropriate individual to proceed forward with the testing.
• UAT approvals and sign-off are obtained from the stakeholders to release the new / changed service in the live environment.

Service validation and testing does not provide a guarantee but a level of customer confidence is gained that the output would be as expected. It provides the quality assurance that the service delivered would be as per customer requirements. An efficient testing process helps prevent spending a lot of time, money and effort post go-live in fixing issues that should have been detected during the testing phase.

About Author:

Amol Bhembre is a consultant in Systems Plus Pvt. Ltd. Within Systems Plus, he actively contributes to the areas of Technology and Information Security. He can be contacted at: amol.b@spluspl.com