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White Paper submitted for: 13th Annual International

Software Testing Conference 2013, QAI

Model Office Testing:

A New Age Quality Imperative

Bharat Jadwani

Senior Consultant

Kartik Jain

Senior Consultant

Robin Jain

Consultant

Deloitte Consulting India Pvt. Ltd.

Fairmont Level 2, Hiranandani Business Park Powai

Mumbai – 400076, Maharashtra

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Abstract

Have you ever wondered why some organizations appear to transition to new ways of working

after the completion of large IT transformation projects or programs seamlessly, while others

struggle and find the experience very disruptive? The answer may well be the Model Office.

The Model Office is a great way to gain buy in from those people who will ultimately use the

system, as it gets them involved early, adapts the systems based on their feedback, and

ultimately gets them to sign-off the systems and processes as fit for purpose.

This paper describes how businesses can embrace Model Office Testing in a quick and easy

manner

Audience:- IT Project Managers, Test Managers, Test Leads, Business Leads and Business

resources with testing responsibilities

Need of thehour – Understanding & Objectives

When we think about testing we naturally think of verifying the outcome produced by

individual system components. We also think of verifying the combination of these system

components to test the end-to-end system. In the process of testing, it is quite common to

forget that these deliverables will have a significant impact on ways of working, tools, and

processes used within the organization. A Model Office can be used to address this.

We have all heard this one time or the other, “When testing, for God sake ensure everything is

the same as it will be in LIVE”. Model Office testing really goes ahead to implement it.

Overview

A Model Office is a simulated business environment that accurately reflects the business

processes and workflows of the ‘to-be’ production environment. It is basically a mini-business

operation, staffed by both experienced business and technical people.

In this scenario these resources then mimic the intake of the business processes and their flow

through the system to ensure that the systems implementation reflects business requirements.

These can also include non-functional requirements.

Alternation and improvements can be fed back into development for either current releases or

future releases depending on need and severity.

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Model offices are typically used over many releases therefore through the life time of the

system rollout.

There are often side benefits; such as it enables business and technology to begin to create a

common dialogue of understanding and cross transfer of skills, essential to any large

application implementation.

Model Office Does:-

• Use pre-established test scripts to test end-to-end business processes in a controlled

manner

• Provide an overview of the system and business processes by walking through

representative business scenarios

• Provide Model Office participants with hands-on experience and exposure to the new

system and business processes, allowing participants to establish confidence, validate

business performance metrics, and identify gaps in business productivity

Model Office Does Not:-

• Provide an opportunity for Model Office participants to experiment with the system or

alter the agreed design

• Provide comprehensive coverage of all system functionality or business processes.

Typically only 20% of transactions that occur 80% of the time should be tested in this

phase. The remaining 80% should have been tested in previous testing phases

• Replace training or provide new users with training

Model Office - Expected Benefits

Model Office Testing provides a production-like environment for stakeholders to perform

complete business processes and validate solution functionality from end to end. By focusing

on most commonly used processes and functionality that has been thoroughly tested, Model

Office Testing helps increase business confidence and accelerates go-live decisions.

Key Benefits:-

• Increases business confidence by providing hands on access to most commonly used

functionality, with constant feedback from Users enabling issues to be caught and

addressed thereby, accelerating the go-live decision

• Helps in identification of potential Risks early in the Project Stage, thereby increasing

the Success rate of the Project

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• Reduces focus on testing and defect resolution in lower priority areas, reducing scope of

testing and the number of defects requiring resolution

• Allows knowledge to be transferred to business earlier in the development lifecycle,

increasing buy-in and supporting change management activities at an early stage as the

systems and processes develop, reducing the severity of the learning curve

• Facilitates a comprehensive evaluation of the Application, its Design and most business

change activities without impacting the operational business

• Allows training of Business/End Users to enrich their experience by working on the

development of the Model Office

• Enables UAT phase to be a Fast tracked stage as key users will have been involved in

the design and build exactly the way through the Model Office

Approach

Model office environments can be easily updated as development progresses, providing strong

support for iteration. Model Office Testing fits perfectly with the iterative approach.

Additionally, several accelerators can be leveraged to speed Model Office preparations.

Figure 1: Model Office Testing Approach

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Model Office Testing is integrated into an overall Test Strategy and Plan, in order to maximize

speed and quality benefits.

Figure 2: Integration with Overall Test Plan

Model Office Testing Vs. Other Testing Phases

The table below represents typical Test phases that are implemented in a release. Each Test

phase builds upon work performed in the previous Test phase. The percentage of conditions

that need to be tested from one phase to another decreases, as users spend more time

validating business workflow.

Figure 3: Model Office Testing Vs. Other Testing Phases

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Proposed Framework

Model Office Testing Framework is a combination of Testing best practices and and a Capability

Development Lifecycle which will engage and support people across the IT organization in

being more effective and efficient prior to go-live. This framework can be used to deploy

Model Office Testing in any IT projects .

It will be used to drive quality, business confidence, and end user training based on Model

Office Testing principles and best practices. The framework has four stages: Planning,

Business Scenario Walkthrough, Partial Business Simulation, and Full Business Simulation.

Each phase combines a focus on increasing the business confidence, uncovering protential

application issues early in the project stage, and reduces the focus on testing and lower

priority areas. The figure below illustrates how Model Office Testing can be employed during

the typical Software Development Lifecycle.

Figure 4: Model Office - Stages and Timing

Business Scenario Walkthrough

The main purpose of the Walkthrough sessions is to gain confidence within the Business areas

that the newly designed Business processes & organizational structures will be fit for purpose

and will achieve the overall requirements of the Organization. Business Scenario Walkthroughs

help validate a consistent understanding of the solution between different work threads (policy,

IT, configuration, and workflow).

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Figure 5: Why execute Business Scenario Walkthroughs?

The objective of the Business Scenario Walkthrough will be achieved through a series of

workshops. The inputs to the workshops will be deliverables from the previous (conceptual

design) and current (detailed design) phase. The outputs will be a validation that the design is

consistent with the principles defined throughout the project

Figure 6: Flow Chart for Business Scenario Walkthroughs

The following tools can be utilized to perform Business Scenario Walkthroughs of the

application solution

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Figure 7: Tools Used for Business Scenario Walkthroughs

Best Practices to consider

Model Office Testing is a relatively new field and still alien to a lot of people in the testing

domain. However, if we follow a structured approach and do things methodically, it can be

adopted with ease and without any hassles. The following best practices should be considered

during Model Office implementation and operation.

Figure 8: Best Practices to Consider

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Case Study - Accelerating Delivery for an Administration System

Program

Deloitte partnered with a leading Insurance provider to improve testing performance through

innovative test strategies. Testing effort dramatically reduced by focusing efforts on most

critical functionality, engaging business stakeholders in a controlled environment, and

increasing use of automation.

Figure 9: Deloitte Case Study

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References

Item Description

Model Office Testing Overview Deloitte Internal Resources

Model Office Testing Simulation Deloitte Internal Resources

Model Office Testing Webinars Deloitte Internal Resources

Other Resources The “Model Office” and improving user acceptance

Helix risk Assessment Approach

Table 1: References

Biography of the Authors

Bharat Jadwani is a Senior Consultant at Deloitte Consulting and has over 10 years of

experience leading the functional requirements and testing teams in onshore offshore delivery

model. He has extensive Functional and QA experience working with insurance clients leading

technology transformation and modernization efforts. His Quality Assurance and Testing

expertise include – Test Design and Execution, Test Planning and Strategies, Test automation

tools and Frameworks, Performance Testing, and Web Services Testing. His technical abilities

include test automation tools such as QuickTest Professional, WinRunner, LoadRunner,

SOATest, and Selenium. Bharat has excellent Life and P&C Insurance domain expertise -

attained LOMA Level I certification in Life Insurance and Annuities, and Guidewire Functional

Certification in PoliceCenter (Policy Admin System). Bharat holds a Bachelor of Science in

Computer Engineering from National Institute of Technology, Jamshedpur.

Kartik Jain is a Senior Consultant at Deloitte Consulting with over 9 years of strong

experience in Functional and Automated Testing of large scale implementations. He has worked

and led cross cultural teams in capacity of Test Lead, HP ALM Specialist, and QA Consultant.

He has performed Quality Assurance for Clients focusing on FSI, Public Sector and Health Care

Sectors and Technical platforms like Siebel, SAP and Customized frameworks. Kartik has good

experience in Client facing roles and has been face of Deloitte at Onshore deployments.

Kartik holds Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science from Amravati University.

Robin Jain is a Consultant at Deloitte Consulting and has over 5 years of experience in both

development and testing roles. He has worked across various industry verticals ranging from

petrochemicals to semiconductors across the globe. He has a rich experience in analyzing

business systems and he has captured the essence of business processes involved across

various sectors. His primary area of interest is Quality and he is a certified SIX SIGMA Green

belt.Robin holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from National Institute of

Technology, Allahabad and a Master’s degree in Business Administration from IIT Delhi.

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APPENDIX - Abbreviations

Item Description

MOT Model Office Testing

MO Model Office

UAT User Acceptance Testing

BSW Business Scenario Walkthroughs

IT Information Technology