Introduction

So, you’ve finally finished the big project. You’ve had all the requirements meetings, configured and developed all of the features the client asked for, and are finally ready to launch everything into the world. Almost immediately after go-live, your inbox and chats are flooded with messages of bugs, broken features, and negative user feedback.

What went wrong? You skipped a crucial step in any successful software project: User Acceptance Testing (UAT).

UAT takes all the hard work you and your team put into a project and puts it through the ringer. It invites end users and stakeholders to play with and, in some instances, break the thing you have worked so hard on. But through testing of real-life scenarios, finding its gaps, and repairing them, you can strengthen any project and launch a more stable product.

By being proactive and identifying bugs and potential issues before launch, UAT ensures that the project’s end product aligns with end-user expectations and business goals. It also helps reduce the risk of post-launch fixes which can inflate project budgets. A well-executed UAT improves the software’s quality and makes user adoption easier by testing its usability and functional design.

In this blog, we will discuss tips and best practices for running a successful and smooth UAT. No UAT will ever be perfect, but we can provide advice around planning, organizing, and managing a project UAT as efficiently as possible to minimize headaches and project strain.

Get Organized

Before jumping into testers’ hands on keyboard, a successful UAT requires a bit of planning. First things first, identify the key stakeholders and create a pool of testers. It is important to pull in users from all sides of the software’s lifecycle from business managers to end users. A wide variety of perspectives will provide the most fruitful feedback and produce the most well-rounded project.

Once you know who will be testing, document the test scenarios to be run by each stakeholder. Since each person will have different system access and day-to-day activities, test scenarios should be catered to the stakeholder’s true to life experience with the solution. Ensure the scripts have the tester not just run through the system as if it is working perfectly but also has them test what happens when things go wrong. This is often called negative testing and can often be forgotten but it is important that the system is tested at both extremes rather than just a perfect world.

Another key consideration is ensuring testers understand the importance of documenting their findings. Providing them with a structured format, such as a standard template, can streamline communication between testers. It helps reduce communication and ambiguity when reporting feedback.

Finally, make sure your testing environment is set up, reflects your real-life business scenario as much as possible and is ready for users to log in and test. It is a small but crucial thing that can keep timelines on track and avoid unnecessary bumps in the testing road. This might require meeting with the testers once or twice to ensure they can successfully log in and feel comfortable in their testing environment. On the day that UAT starts, users should be ready to rock and roll rather than struggling to just access the testing environment.

A brief training session ahead of UAT is critical for UAT. Not all testers will be familiar with the concept of a UAT phase and just giving them some context on what and why of this portion of the project can be a massive help when orienting them. A brief orientation can improve engagement and help testers feel confident and really own their feedback.

Set a Schedule

UAT should be a big, bold block in any project timeline before kick-off. It is as important as requirements gathering and development and it should always be treated as such. Schedule time for it and then add some more time. While we hope UAT goes perfectly on schedule, it almost never does. And since it is such an important part of a project’s lifecycle, it is always best to give yourself more time rather than cramming too much into too short of a time, creating unnecessary team member and project stress.

It’s also important to define the project’s UAT exit criteria when it comes to UAT. Depending on the scale of a project, these criteria can change. Lower stakes projects might just need critical bugs to be resolved but lower risk ones can be resolved during an initial launch period. Some projects need all test scenarios to run through and passed before sign-off from the project owners can be completed. Other projects might need additional usability confirmation around the UI/UX elements in addition to everything mentioned before. It will all vary from project to project but it is important to define those criteria during planning, so it is clear to all participants when the UAT phase is complete.

Communicate and Check-In Often

UAT in a project should be treated as a relationship between the project developers and its end users. And like with any productive relationship, communication is key. Regularly check in with testers to track progress, unblock them and allow for feedback on their experience. A regular meeting between those fixed issues and those reporting them will help the two parties effectively communicate and move forward with ease.

Aside from meetings, maintaining open channels for real-time discussions, such as group chats and project forums, can foster quicker resolutions of issues. This will prevent minor roadblocks from delaying the entire process.

It’s important to also emphasize with testers that their feedback should not just be this feature works, and this one doesn’t. Encourage usability feedback. If a page layout is confusing or not intuitive, testers should be encouraged to express that. UAT is for refining a project into its best form, and to do that, people must navigate around and understand, not just a series of feature requirements ticked off a checklist.

Managing Defects

An easy place for UAT to become challenging is the process by which defects are managed. Structure and clear processes are essential so that testers can quickly and easily communicate defects to developers and then the developers can communicate back to the testers about resolution to that feedback. A project team should agree on a central place to report defects as well as define what is required information from testers to report a bug so that developers have all the necessary information to reproduce, fix and test a defect before passing it back to a tester for their final testing.

Defects should also be prioritized so that system breaking issues are worked on with greater attention than issues such as not agreeing with field placement on a form page. Focused attention from developers and testers is valuable and can make a UAT phase feel easier than if that focus was lacking.

Post-UAT Review

Once a UAT phase is completed, it is important to reflect on it. Meet with the participants and ask plainly about what worked and what didn’t about the process for them. Just like the project itself, processes around a project can also be refined with feedback. Understanding the strengths and faults of a project is key to growth.

A UAT retrospective report documenting key takeaways, defects and overall performance can act as valuable reference for future UAT cycles and act as a physical representation of lessons learned. Continuous improvement is key to any project.

Conclusion

The UAT part of the project does not always get the same attention that gathering and building requirements do, but it is a cornerstone that can make or break a project. Remember to organize UAT early, establish a cadence for feedback, communicate often, manage defects via a clearly defined process and be available to reflect after completion. With these tools in your toolbelt, you are ready to crush your next UAT phase and deliver the highest quality solution you and your team are capable of.

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Tyler Shobe
Salesforce Certified Administrator
Salesforce Certified Platform App Builder
Account Engagement Specialist
BillingPlatform Partner Pro Certification
RadixBay Salesforce Consultant