Page 122 - CITP Review

An important asset to testing is the use of a simulator or staging area. A staging area replicates the
enterprise system in terms of platform, operating system, all relevant applications, and all relevant
databases — at the enterprise level or scope. With this tool, an appropriate level of testing can be
performed reliably.

The testing should follow an effective, detailed test plan. The test cases should include a sufficient
number of different permutations of possible scenarios in order to test the scope of possibilities. They
should also be developed in such a way to test controls, at least the key controls. That plan sometimes is
summarized on a checklist complete with dates and signatures to ensure the entire plan was performed
and the performance was acceptable. The results should be documented for analysis and for reference
for future testing.

Last phase
The last phase involves the transition from the old way of doing things and the new way, to complete
putting the application or system into operations.

One element that sometimes is either ignored, or treated too lightly, is training. The greater the scope of
change and the more the business processes have been changed or affected, the greater the need for
training, because the risk is greater for data entry and business processes to not function properly. One
way to reduce risk of failures in business processes, and errors in data entry, is to provide adequate
training when changes to applications or business processes change.

Another key success factor in changes to systems is controls over the transition from the old system to
the new one. The IT staff will need to plan for that transition — including conversion and implementation
— and provide controls and activities concomitant with the level of assessed risk involved with the
implementation.

For high risk of conversion, there is likely to be a team of experts on site for the initial few hours of
operation. There will be other controls, whether it is increased testing, or the choice of transition method.
High risk is associated with the degree of the change, the scope of applications and systems affected,
and the nature of the change (for example, a change in the formula for calculating utility charges for a
municipal utility is significant risk because all of the revenues and their accuracy are dependent on that
calculation).

The transition can follow one of multiple choices for conversion: cutover, parallel, or phased.

 Cutover refers to turning the old system off and immediately turning the new one on. The risk of
problems is high, as all systems could be affected by a failure, and there is likely no going back to the
old system without great cost and difficulty; however, some conversions are best suited for cutover.
 Parallel means the old system and the new system are run simultaneously through some reasonable
time frame. The risks of failures are minimized with this approach, but the cost of transition is the
highest with this method.
 The phased approach is a mix of the two. One business unit is chosen to be a “beta,” where a cutover
approach is used; however, because it is a single business unit, the risk is limited to that one unit.
When the new system is operating reliably, then another business unit phases in by converting using
cutover. That process continues until all units are converted to the new system. This approach has
reduced risk compared to a cutover and reduced cost compared to the parallel.

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