As your client may be increasingly dependent upon your solutions to satisfy corporate aims and meet business needs, you will need to ensure that you, as the supplier, provide the high-quality services your customers demand.
This section summaries all four areas. Clearly you need to add and subtract to these areas depending on the specific assignment you are working on.
Assignment (acceptance) testing
Here we just look at acceptance testing, as this is the final phase of testing where you and the client can agree that the solution meets the business needs and operates as required
The outline Assignment Acceptance Test Plan is produced as the requirements are agreed. This involves reviewing the scope of the business tests required, the test strategy and so on. The plan is in two parts:
- Client Acceptance Tests: The client is responsible for testing to ensure the solution meets their business needs, delivers the required benefits and meets the pre-agreed acceptance criteria. They need to define and document the test conditions, decide the order, prepare the test data, edict the results, and review the tests.
- Your own support Acceptance Tests: You might need to be assured that client can use your solution and that you can maintain and support it. In an IT application you might need to ensure that the application can be tested for:
- restart, recovery, control and contingency features
- system performance (e.g. network capacities)
Completion
You will need:
- Documentation: Ensure that documentation in the form of procedures manuals, operating instructions etc. are available. Ensure that the planned training programme has been completed.
- Test Data: Ensure that all test data and test cases are created.
- Hardware and Software: Ensure that any necessary equipment is installed
- Proof: The ‘End of Test Report’ is the document which eventually forms the basis for acceptance (or rejection of the system.
Handover
Acceptance testing demonstrates that a solution is ready for operational use. Final acceptance is based on the performance in terms of functionality, operational effectiveness, documentation, and procedures for control and recovery, set against the pre-defined acceptance criteria.
You will also need formal ongoing supply agreement detailing the:
- Service specification, in specific and measurable terms the services required, how they are to be delivered and the duration they are required
- Service level, the performance standards (service levels) that relate to each of the services to be provided
- Roles and responsibilities, the obligations of the supplier (you?) and the client with any limits and boundaries of responsibility
- Transition period and acceptance, how existing services will be handed over to the client
- Prices, payment and duration the price and payment for delivery of the services, including the basis of charging
- Agreement administration, how the agreement will be managed and administered, include provision for disputes
- The transfer and ownership of assets
Ongoing support and delivery
- Configuration Management: is an integral part of all other Service Management processes. With current, accurate and comprehensive information about all components in the infrastructure the management of Change, in particular, is more effective and efficient.
- Change Management: The Change Management process depends on the accuracy of the configuration data to ensure the full impact of making changes is known. There is therefore a very close relationship between
- Release Management: Changes may often result in the need for new hardware, new versions of
software, and/or new documentation, created in-house or bought in. - Incident Management: There must be a close interface between the incident Management process and the Problem Management and Change Management processes as well as the function of the service desk.
- Problem Management: The Problem Management process requires the accurate and comprehensive recording of Incidents in order to identify effectively and efficiently identify the cause of the Incidents and trends.
- Service Desk: The Service Desk is the single point of contact between service providers and Users, on a day-to-day basis. It is also a focal point for reporting Incidents and making service requests.
- Service Level Management: The Service Level Management (SLM) process is responsible for ensuring Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and underpinning Operational Level Agreements (OLAs) or contracts are met, and for ensuring that any adverse impact on service quality are kept to a minimum. It is this area where you need to concentrate if you wish to sell on
- Capacity Management: Capacity Management is involved in Incident resolution and Problem identification for those difficulties relating to capacity issues.
- IT Financial Management: Financial Management is responsible for accounting for the costs of providing IT services and for any aspects of recovering these costs from the Customers (charging)
- Availability Management: Availability Management is concerned with the design, implementation, measurement and management of IT services to ensure the stated business requirements for availability are consistently met.
- IT Service Continuity: IT Service Continuity is concerned with managing an organisation’s ability to continue to provide a pre-determined and agreed level of IT Services to support the minimum business requirements following an interruption to the business.
- Customer Relationship Management: Customer Relationship Management is about developing and nurturing a good professional working relationship between customers and IT service providers.
- ICT Infrastructure Management: ICT Infrastructure Management functions will be involved in most of the processes of Service Support and Service Delivery where more technical issues are concerned.
- Application Management: To deliver a maintainable service for the business means delivering the skills, training, and communications with the application. Applications Management will consider the issues from feasibility through productive life to the final demise of the application.
- Security Management: The Security Management function will interface with IT Service Management processes where security issues are involved.
- Assignment Management Issues and Relevance: We suggest that for consistent and reliable service, you check your client (and supplier’s) delivery and support procedures against a framework such as the ITIL framework – there are areas of concern then get them changed. Do the same for your own processes as well!