Information Services Otago Ltd. - System Testing Service

System testing is so often the poor relation in systems developments and implementations.

Why? - It’s understandable. If the development or implementation doesn’t progress, there is nothing to test, so, traditionally, testing can drop off the end of a project simply because all hands turn first to the development pump, and testing is done last.

Even when an enlightened Project Manager doesn’t wait until the last minute, but assigns dedicated staff to testing during the course of the project, things can go awry. People are diverted to the more pressing requirements of their “proper” jobs, fighting fires in the real world and attending to the myriad meetings and administrative details their posts demand. Of course they are; few organisations can afford to keep a full time staff of “extras” just to handle the peaks in testing new and modified systems from time to time.

Yet rigorous testing of new developments and their impact upon existing functionality is as important in ensuring a trouble-free implementation as the development itself. And it really is important to test each step of the way, not wait until the project is complete until you discover the fundamental flaw in an early stage.

But how can you follow best practice without blowing your payroll budget or burning out your staff?

The answer is Testing Times, our system testing service. You have access to trained and experienced systems professionals as and when you need them. Either to develop test scripts from your project specifications, or apply scripts you have already developed.

And as a Testing Times client, you can ask us to hold your test scripts and reapply them against subsequent system versions, so regression testing is just another utility.

There is no cheap way to ensure a system change or implementation performs as – and only as – you wish it to.

There are many inexpensive ways to failure though. Don’t let your development or implementation fall at the testing hurdle.

The problem	The solution
We don’t have time to test properly.	Testing Times does. And for clients in other time zones, we can perform your next test iteration overnight, as your developers rest and recharge.
We don’t really know how to do a proper system test.	Testing Times does. Our staff has years of experience in performing functional and regression tests on a wide variety of systems, under ISO certified conditions.
Development people only test the parts they “know” have changed.	Testing Times will perform tests of the entire system.
And they never find their own bugs – they “know” how it works.	Testing Times will develop tests from your requirements definition or system specifications. A truly independent interpretation of the project definition.
But the requirements specification isn’t always really what we want.	Testing Times will test your requirements documents and specifications against their years of experience of business and organisational practice to help you find problems before development or implementation even begin.
We can’t afford comprehensive testing.	You daren’t not. And using Testing Times you pay only for the time you use – not for extra full time staff.