How can you conduct Operational Acceptance Testing effectively and efficiently?

This is part of why it is important. It's primary purpose is to ensure the operations teams, those responsible for keeping the system running, are ready for that transition and have the knowledge, skills, SOPs etc to be able to effectively support it.

1. During OAT software configurations and operational support, components come together 2. It tests the implementation of functional or structural changes to software or service in a functional or non-functional environment 3. This testing determines whether an application can be deployed on a network according to IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) standards 4. It tells whether a software will operate the way it is designed to without disrupting the business process 5. OAT focusses mainly on these aspects of software product Resiliency Recovering ability Manageability and supportability Integrity

Identifies Issues: Detects and resolves problems that could impact system availability, stability, and usability in the production environment. Ensures Compatibility: Verifies that the system integrates smoothly with existing infrastructure, processes, and organizational policies. Prevents Failures: Helps avoid costly failures, downtime, and customer dissatisfaction by ensuring the system is operationally ready before full deployment.

Again, this misses the entire "operational readiness" aspect of OAT. Its fine having resilience and HA, but if the ops teams have no idea how to recover systems or understand monitoring metrics, it's a bit pointless.

Installation Testing: Verifying system setup on target platforms. Backup and Recovery Testing: Ensuring effective data backup and restoration. Disaster Recovery Testing: Confirming recovery from major disruptions. Load and Stress Testing: Validating performance under various loads. Security Testing: Protecting against unauthorized access and breaches. Compliance Testing: Ensuring adherence to industry standards and regulations.

Very generic answer. You should work with the people responsible for supporting the respective technologies to get them invested. Collaborate over scenarios to test, agree SOPs you need to create, and then co-ordinate those people conducting the testing. It's far more effective than project people doing it.

Define Objectives: Clearly state what the testing aims to achieve. Scope and Criteria: Outline the testing scope and establish success criteria. Testing Methods: Choose appropriate methods and tools. Identify Roles: Specify responsibilities for testers, developers, operators, users, and managers. Document the Plan: Create a clear, concise OAT plan and share it with all stakeholders. Align with Project: Ensure the plan fits within the project’s schedule, budget, and resource constraints.

You should define failure modes, prioritise the most likely to occur and concentrate on those. Time permitting, circle back round to the lower priority items.

Follow the Plan: Adhere to the OAT plan, using the designated tools, techniques, and data. Prepare Environment: Set up the test environment, data, and scripts in advance. Monitor and Control: Oversee the testing process and promptly address any issues or defects. Document Results: Record test outcomes and supporting evidence. Evaluate Results: Assess the results against predefined criteria. Review with Stakeholders: Validate outcomes and recommendations with all relevant stakeholders.

Correct but generic. Define failure modes per technology stack, monitor production and map to these, identify which ones occur most frequently. Did you test those? If not why not. If you did and no issue were identified, why not? Refine other failure modes based on these findings.

Collect Feedback: Gather insights from stakeholders and testers. Analyze Lessons Learned: Review strengths, weaknesses, and best practices from the testing process. Propose Improvements: Suggest and implement changes to enhance quality, efficiency, and effectiveness. Update OAT Plan: Refine the plan, methods, and criteria to align with evolving organizational needs and user expectations.

Testing the likes of fail over, backups, alerting, monitoring etc is as much to get ops teams ready as it is to find issues. Don't forget that.