Financial Management Service
Department of Treasury
Testing Process Evaluation / IV&V
- Identification of critical root-causes that have impacted the programs testing success
- Definition of a roadmap with 9 improvement reccomendations to address testing maturity
Challenge
Financial Management Service (FMS) is responsible for maintaining effective and efficient cash management for the government. Debt Management Services (DMS), a part of FMS, supports the processing of debt and other services to agencies. DMS’ testing process for their Cross Servicing and Treasury Offset Program (TOP) and related applications have been experiencing significant schedule delays, software quality and resource management issues. Octo Consulting Group was brought into to conduct a comprehensive maturity assessment of their testing processes, and an action plan to get them back on track.
Approach
Octo provided FMS and DMS support in conducting a comprehensive evaluation of its testing processes to help achieve the following objectives: build on the strengths of current processes and practices; align test improvement efforts with organization's long-term strategic goals; reduce schedule delays; recommend sufficient resources for performance and regression testing; and reduce the backlog of change requests. Perform data collection and analysis of current testing process; develop as-is and to-be (target) states; and identify process improvement recommendations.
Solutions
- Conducted an assessment of FMS’ testing practices and established a target-state testing model.
- Developed an optimal target-state testing strategy and process that is designed to improve project outcomes while minimizing testing times and promoting efficiency of the testing processes and addressing the existing pain points that FMS is facing with the current testing process.
- Refined the strategy with FMS project stakeholders using interactive workshops. The scope of the testing strategy included validation of overall test methodology, specific test categories, testing tools and reporting systems.
Key focus areas included:
- SDLC maturity assessment
- Process IV&V
Results
- Facilitated root cause analysis of current testing process issues through holistic approach
- Developed as-is and target state workflow models
- Identified process improvement recommendations based on an IT Service Management framework and industry best practices (e.g. ITIL, CMMI, ISO, and COBIT)
RESULTS MATTER