What would happen if we didn’t perform a UAT cycle?

[Stephen]

I posted a question to the community recently “$ Value to testing?” and I’ve received very little response. I know this is both a controversial subject and a very difficult question to answer with any real quantifiable answer as the benefits are largely conceptual. i.e. cost of something that didn’t happen v’s cost of finding and fixing that something, plus the value of information and knowledge. A trainer can value knowledge by the cost of providing it, e.g. Time and Materials. But a tester is asked to justify the cost of testing they can’t just say, well I need 3 people, 3 weeks, and a test environment, therefore the value of testing is $x,000. The stakeholders will say “Why should I pay that much, what value are you generating? Cut the cost.”
Whilst discussing how we can provide a $ Value for UAT a thought came to me: Maybe I need to approach this from a different angle; change my position and look at it again. So; what is the other side of the question?
What would happen if we didn’t perform a UAT cycle? Particularly when providing an enterprise level managed solution containing many systems integrated (Large scale enterprise system of systems) to a clearly identified customer. Obviously you have to do UAT with the customer, both the internal delivery organisation and the customer stakeholders insist on evidence of fit for purpose and support of business process before signing of the solution for steady state operations. But what if we didn’t do UAT; what would happen? Does UAT really provide a tangible value?
If we can identify the; what if we didn’t do UAT scenario and the negatives to that, we can tailor the value statement and goals of UAT to give the budget holders a comfortable warm feeling that UAT is money well spent and should be invested in.
So everyone, tell me your beliefs and experience of: What would happen if we didn’t perform a UAT cycle?

[Daragh]

Hi Stephen,

You should speak with Bart Watertor, Devesh Maheshwari and Jayanthi Kodanda. They are three members who have experience of working with UAT.

[Padmaraj]

Hi,

With following my last comment on “$ Value to testing?”

I like to bring a 2 points on, What would happen if we do UAT cycle.

Tangible values
1) More better understanding of the all requirements, where they come from, proper service and base-line data for future maintenance.
2) Why we preform each and every test, test methods, understanding specific testing specifications, and maintenance of product subject to long intervals between development/test life cycles.

[Author]

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