Activity: Manage Acceptance Test

This activity ensures that the product is deemed acceptable to the customer prior to its general release.

Description	Work Breakdown Structure	Team Allocation	Work Product Usage

Relationships

Parent Activities	Deployment

Description

The Deployment Manager organizes the installation of the product on one or more Test Environment Configurations that represents an environment acceptable to the customer as specified in the Product Acceptance Plan.

In some cases, the installation process itself may be subject to an acceptance test, as may any preceding hardware upgrades and configurations.

Once installed, the Tester typically runs through a preselected set of tests, usually based on a selected subset of the existing Test Suites, and determines the Test Results. The Deployment Manager and other stakeholders review the Test Results for anomalies. If there are "show stoppers", the Deployment Manager raises Change Requests that require immediate attention and resolution, and may delay or postpone subsequent plans for deployment to a wider user base.

Properties

Event Driven
Multiple Occurrences
Ongoing
Optional
Planned
Repeatable

Staffing

A Deployment Manager needs to be someone who is aware of the operational needs of the end user and capable of enabling a valid assessment of the product in a suitable environment. Pulling together all the many items, events and resources required for a successful acceptance test requires exceptional planning and organizational skills.

Usage

Usage Guidance

This work is generally performed in Construction and Transition, typically starting later into construction. In some exceptional cases, acceptance testing may be useful in Elaboration iterations. Within an iteration, it is typically conducted later in the iteration on a more mature software build.

Note that when acceptance testing is performed, the formality of that testing will differ to suit the project context.