Phase E: Testing and Refinement
Beta testing is your team’s first opportunity to test-drive the functionality of
your new Smart Client application. The goal of this phase is to run the application
through your end-to-end business process — verify the features, capabilities, performance,
security, data integrity and workflow — and identify any and all issues that prevent
the new application from being used successfully in production.
It is quite common that your staff is using your legacy system in parallel with
testing the new application, so it is essential that the testing and feedback process
is as efficient as possible, and focused. To this end, PCA employs a specific Testing
& Feedback tool and process, to facilitate capture, tracking and resolution
of all issues and priorities at the line-item level.
PCA follows the same feedback-loop methodology for Beta testing as during the Prototype
Design Phase: online and paper annotated versions of the application, with multiple
iterations based upon your detailed review and feedback. As with the Prototype
Design Phase, PCA will continue to make refinements to the application until everyone
is satisfied that the new solutions is suitable to your business needs, and is ready
to deploy into day-to-day production use.
PCA will host the Beta application at RackSpace during the Testing and Refinement phase.