UAT (User Acceptance Testing) is the last hurdle before delivery.
If UAT goes badly it’s fair to say that much of the good work prior to UAT is wasted. Doesn’t matter if you were winning. Didn’t matter that this girl was winning:
Ouch. Bet that hurt!
You can clear every hurdle (requirements capture, project management, development, system test, etc) but get UAT wrong and it will hurt.
Unlike hurdling, when you reach UAT you are entitled to pick the best person for the job. Select the best tester, test lead or even test manager to help you clear that last hurdle. He or she doesn’t have to be the quickest or even the fittest. They just need to be able to clear the last hurdle.
Always put the best person forward to make sure you clear that last UAT hurdle!
What I’m saying is get the most suitable person in your team to act as the UAT lead and the interface to the customer. This may not be the same test lead that’s been running the testing so far. It may not be the best tester on the team. It may not even be the test manager.
From your side you need to pick someone to lead the UAT who is good at building relationships, good at negotiating and good at reaching compromise.
Yes, sure you want someone who’s good technically, understands the product and understands the UAT test process. Just as important though is the ability to:
- gently talk the customer round from unnecessary changes.
- admit you need to change a feature that will never work in the real world.
- sense which requests the customer is serious about and which they really could live without.
During UAT it’s all too easy for the customer to start saying “when we said we wanted X we didn’t really mean X”. “We meant X but with bells and whistles”. “And we can’t go live if it doesn’t whistle”.
I agree we’re trying to meet, and exceed, the customer’s expectations. However, in reality UAT is all about reaching compromise. If you’re going to stand any chance of delivering to a reasonable time scale you need compromise.
That is, compromise unless your business is in the habit of losing money. If you want to give the customer free reign to change and modify every part of what you’ve delivered, continually tweaking, then fine. Just don’t lose sight of the fact that delivering the product without making a profit is going to impact on you just as much as the company.
If things get real bad, as a last resort get your sales team involved.
It is, after all, a team effort here. Sales can be much better at negotiating with the customer. They are far less bashful when it comes to saying ‘that will cost you’! The ‘that will cost you’ approach very quickly stops customers asking for too much.
Sometimes it’s the customer that needs to compromise. Sometimes it’s us that needs to compromise. Just make sure you’ve got the right person in place to make those calls.
Whoever you choose, whoever jumps that last hurdle, you need to be certain that they are capable. Capable of building a good relationship as well as being prepared to face up to the customer.
If you fail you can be certain that the customer will be raising the height of that last hurdle whilst you’re not paying attention. And, that will hurt!