Ensuring Excellence: Quality Assurance and Quality Control in Banking System Implementation

In the realm of technology operations and project management, two major areas address quality: Quality Assurance (QA) and Quality Control (QC). These two pillars serve distinct yet interconnected purposes, safeguarding projects from inception to fruition, and are integral to the successful implementation of new banking systems.?

Quality Assurance: The Proactive Approach

Quality Assurance is a proactive approach that seeks to ensure the scope of work has a quality framework to operate within. It ensures the work is held and measured to compliance standards before it is undertaken, thereby preventing quality issues.?

A significant practice within QA is the Enterprise Architecture practice, which includes landscape surveys, frameworks, standards, and engineering reviews. Enterprise Architecture is not merely a technical infrastructure practice; it's a strategic alignment of technology to bolster business capabilities. As such, it should be business-focused and articulate how business capabilities are realized in various technologies.?

In the banking sector, QA plays a crucial role in ensuring that financial processes, systems, and products are compliant and working correctly. With the rise in digitization and the increasing competition from virtual or online banks, QA processes have become more significant than ever.?

Two Examples of the Importance of Quality Assurance?

For instance, 2Oaks was recently engaged in a project that had a quality assurance component led by the enterprise architecture team and a governing body referred to as the design authority. This project involved setting up an entire new banking system and all the supporting financial services systems, infrastructure, security, compliance, and operations. Quality assurance quickly highlighted dozens of systems that had not been included in the scope, found reuse in many areas, and ensured a consistent and efficient realization of the design.?

Contrasting this example, 2Oaks was asked to intervene in another project that had begun without a Quality Assurance practice. The goal of the project was the migration from one core to another with a very small product set and customer base. However, due to the lack of QA the project had an ambiguous scope that was only discovered as the project went along. This resulted in a project reset, indicating that the project was done wrong.

Quality Control: The Reactive Approach

Whereas Quality Assurance is a proactive approach that provides a robust framework before the work begins, Quality Control (QC) is a reactive approach that evaluates the success of outputs or deliverables after work completion. It involves a detailed examination of the product against predefined requirements, focusing on identifying and rectifying defects. It’s important to note that the effectiveness of the QC process is reliant on the upstream work done in the requirements (see Part 5 of this series) and the Quality Assurance mentioned above.?

In banking, QC is a multi-layered approach that ensures all the components work in unison to create a production-ready banking eco-system.? We briefly touch on each phase below:?

1.?????? The first phase in the QC process is functional testing to ensure code or configuration aligns with business functionalities, which involves much collaboration with your banking system vendor to reach the point where the components are ready for Integration Testing.

2.?????? Given the interconnected nature of banking systems, System Integration Testing (SIT) is necessary to test functional units holistically. This phase brings all the working components together as an ecosystem and requires alignment of code, data, and environments from your banking vendors and third-party ancillaries, such as online banking. It is critical SIT be done thoroughly to ensure readiness for the next phases of testing.?

3.?????? User Acceptance Testing (UAT) fine tunes the system and ensures business stakeholders are ready to accept it into production. This phase is where roles and access permissions come together and become real for the end users. A smooth UAT process is crucial to avoid change management issues.?

4.?????? Performance Testing ensures the banking system operates efficiently and reliably on the new platform. It tests against non-functional requirements, such as Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and is executed in iterations to improve performance.

5.?????? Data Migration Testing ensures data matches and balances to the source system. It is typically executed by the data migration team and is prime for automation.?

6.?????? The Cutover Dress Rehearsal is the practice of the entire go-live process from a technical and people/behaviours perspective. It simulates the go-live process as closely as possible.? For example, if your team will be onsite for go-live weekend, the Cutover Dress Rehearsal should be practiced as such.??

7.?????? Security Testing in a banking migration project involves systematically assessing the resilience of the migrated systems and data against potential threats, ensuring the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of sensitive financial information and transactions.

The significance of Quality Control resonates throughout the phases of the project in pivotal tests like these. This kind of testing requires clear entry and exit criteria be achieved as the project moves from one test phase to the next.

Conclusion: Striking the Balance

In any banking system implementation, it is critical to have a good balance between Quality Assurance and Quality Control. The cardinal sin lies in neglecting Quality Assurance in favour of an exclusive focus on Quality Control. Projects devoid of a robust QA framework risk stumbling into ambiguity, leading to unforeseen scope expansions, noncompliant systems, and potentially catastrophic project resets, significantly increasing the amount of effort and resources required.

In the symphony of implementing new banking systems, Quality Assurance and Quality Control harmonize to orchestrate success. While Quality Assurance sets the stage, fortifying projects with a solid foundation, Quality Control ensures the precision and functionality of every moving part. Their collaboration isn't just complementary; it's indispensable for the seamless, efficient, and compliant realization of innovative banking systems.

What strategies or experiences have you found most effective in balancing Quality Assurance (QA) and Quality Control (QC) in banking system implementations? Share your insights on how to strike the right equilibrium between proactive assurance and reactive control for successful project outcomes.

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