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ITSM Best Practices: UAT

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ITSM Best Practices Tip by Freelance ITSM Consultant with 100+ Implementations in the UK, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore

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When it comes to ITSM Best Practices there is no better source than that of a seasoned Consultant with the voice of experience of years Implementation experience.

One of the most crucial steps in System Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is User Acceptance Testing (UAT), a type of system and business objective validation, performed by the end users, and business objective sign-off by the project owner; not to be confused with System Testing which is performed by the Developer and/or Administrator

Many ITSM Implementations fall short when it comes to proper UAT Testing, be it due to a lack of resources, time, or budget, but more often than not due to a shortcoming of proper UAT Action Plan, UAT Test Cases and Scripts, and a lack of Best Practices, Strategy, Coordination, and Planning.

Today we shall focus on ITSM Best Practices for UAT.

UAT Best Practices

  • Daily Stand-Up Calls coordinated by the decision maker and UAT Test Lead with the UAT Test Team
    • Review of UAT Decision Tree
    • Review Test Results, questions, unexpected behaviour, workarounds, tester comments
    • Review Reference Data to-do list for PROD
    • Identify key areas for training (bullet points) 
    • Test Case Maintenance – identify new test cases or changes needed to existing test cases
    • Daily Email Summary to the Consultant, bullet points, of areas that need to be addressed, identifying “show-stoppers” and “must-haves”, “questions”
  • Scribe – Appoint a person to take meeting notes, and keep track of any “nice-to-haves”, “parking lot items”, “knowledge articles” needed.  Typically this function falls on the Knowledge Manager/Trainer.
  • Weekly Calls with ITSM Consultant to review the progress, test results, and discuss UAT remediation scope.
  • Focus on Job Functions, not features, not enhancements, not future phases. 
  • No Bug Hunts – The point of UAT is not to find bugs.  It’s to ensure day-to-day functions can be carried out and the steps for those job functions are documented for training purposes.   Any unexpected behaviour can be recorded in tester comments.
  • Keep it Simple – Focus on test cases at hand.  If there are any issues, make sure to record the reference #, 1 or 2 screenshots, bullet point tester comments, no need for long novels with pages of screenshots.  

For more information be sure to contact us!

By Freelance ITSM Consultant

Freelance Consultant, Developer since 1996 with 100+ ITSM/ITAM/ESM Implementations

Extensive Implementation Experience with ITSM products such as but not limited to Ivanti Neurons, Ivanti Service Manager, and HEAT ITSM

Past Customers include Fortune 500 & Global 500 Enterprise Clients, Frontrange Business Partners, Ivanti Business Partners, and private Swiss banks.

Roles and Responsibilities from Project Management, System Architecture, Design, Development, Consulting (technical & functional)

Worldwide in the UK, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Singapore, Canada, and the USA

Disclaimer: Not endorsed by, affiliated with, or sponsored by Ivanti
"Ivanti Consultant" refers to job description, experience, and skill set with Ivanti's product line and is merely descriptive of the fact that I have experience with Ivanti's ITSM products.

I have never been directly employed by Ivanti,

I have been employed by Frontrange Business Partners and sub-contracted by Ivanti Business Partners to work with Ivanti Project Managers and/or Ivanti Implementations