 Hello and welcome to this session in which we will discuss testing and change management. Testing is a crucial element, is an important element in a concept that we called a change management. Now we covered change management in the prior session. What is a change management? It's a process by which an organization adapt a new IT system or a software, new strategies, processes, technologies or structures. Now we're going to be focusing more on IT system and but the idea is change management is when you change from a current state to a new state and what we do, we're going to do some testing and what is the purpose of the testing in this process? So the purpose of testing and change management is to make sure that the changes that we are implementing are effective, efficient, minimal disruption to the organization and there are some specific objectives of testing and change management and that will include validate solutions, identify issues and risks, ensure smooth transition especially that you are moving from one state to the other, maintain quality and compliance and monitor performance. Now your CPA review course might show more or less of these objectives. That's fine. What I'm going to do, I'm going to explain each objective separately, give you an example, then give you specific test about this example. Now the test I'm going to be giving are practical tests. Eventually we're going to look at some general testing in a separate recording, testing of systems but in this session I will give you a specific example then how can you test for that specific example. Before we proceed any further, I have a public announcement about my company farhatlectures.com. Farhat accounting lectures is a supplemental educational tool that's going to help you with your CPA exam preparation as well as your accounting courses. My CPA material is aligned with your CPA review course such as Becker, Roger, Wiley, Gleam, Miles. My accounting courses are aligned with your accounting courses broken down by chapter and topics. My resources consist of lectures, multiple choice questions, true-false questions as well as exercises. Go ahead, start your free trial today, no obligation, no credit card required. Starting with validate solutions. Well, validate solution is a type of testing and change management. Well, what does that mean? It's a testing that helps validate that the proposed changes, whatever you proposed, whatever you said we are going to do, are fit for the purpose and meet the identified objective. Well, you said I am going to make the following changes. Well, guess what? Test to make sure that you achieve those objectives. It ensures that the new processes, systems or structure are functional, reliable and efficient. For example, a financial service company decide to update its online banking system for the purpose of improving user experience, enhanced security and add new features. Well, the company's intent include increasing customer satisfaction, improve user experience, reducing security, you want to enhance security and staying competitive in the market. Now, you want to validate that the proposed changes meet those objectives. Well, what you need to do, you need to conduct, perform various tests to ensure the updated system is functional, reliable and efficient. So what could be some examples of testing to support this validation? Well, we have a test that's called functionality test. Now, for example, functionality test is a very general term for testing. So it could be used for any type of testing, but here I'm given it in this context. So the company test, whether the updated system, the updated online banking system, support all required functions such as account balance, checks, funds, transfer, bill payment and statements download. I'm testing to see if it's functionally working as promised. So testers create test cases to create each function focusing on both expected and an expected user input to ensure that the system behave as intended. You could also do what's called a user experience testing. Well, here testers assess the new user interface design, navigation and responsive to ensure it meets customer expectation and provide seamless experience. Simply put, you just tell the users, maybe employees, maybe just people random, just tell them, test the system, see if it's working as expected. This may conduct usability tests with a sample group of customers or maybe customers to gather feedback and identify area for improvement. This is a form of testing. Again, we're going to have, we're going to have specific, these are examples, specific examples. We're going to have a blanket terms for all these examples. Security testing, you always want to do security testing. Well, what for? You perform security testing to perform various security tests to validate that the updated system is resistant to potential cyber threat, unauthorized access, data breaches and denial of service attacks. We talked about all of those when we talked about cyber security. These tests may include penetration system. You want to see if the system can be penetrated, vulnerability scanning. Is it vulnerable to any sorts of attack, secure code reviews to ensure the system complies with the latest security standards. Also, what we can do is we can identify issues and risk. That's the second type of testing to identify issues and risks. Testing enables an organization to identify potential problems, risks and bottlenecks that may arise during the implementation of changes. We want to see if there's, it's going to be any problem when we implement those changes. That's why we do some testing. This allows proactive mitigation measures reducing the likelihood of costly disruption. This way we want to know if there's any issues and risk upfront. So suppose a healthcare organization is implementing a new electronic healthcare record system to streamline patient record, management, improved staff efficiency and enhanced patient care. That's the, that's the purpose of the change. Well, the organization will conduct various tests to identify potential issues and risks that may arise during the implementation. So what type of issues and issues we can test for? Well, let's take a look at some examples. Comparability test. Well, the testers check whether the new electronic healthcare record system is compatible with the organization's existing hardware, existing hardware, software and network infrastructure. Is it compatible? Because that's a risk. If it's not compatible, we need to take care of this upfront. They may discover compatibility issues that could hinder system performance or cause other operational problem. So by identifying those risks early, the organization can take corrective measures such as upgrading hardware or adjusting the network configuration or maybe using a new software system. We don't know. Compliance testing. Well, remember this is electronic, electronic health record. Well, we want to make sure you're in compliance. The organization tests whether the new system has a compliance with relevant regulations such as HIPAA and other data privacy laws, which we talked about in a separate session. During the testing, they might identify potential risks related to non-compliance, which could result in fine legal action and reputation. So identifying these risks, it will enable the organization to implement the necessary changes to the system or internal process system to maintain compliance. You want to test those as early as possible. And compliance, well, it could be used in any other organization. Disaster recovery and continuity testing. The organization here tests the new system to see if it's resilient to potential disasters such as hardware failure, power outage, and cybersecurity. Here they may identify risk related to data loss, prolonged system downtime, which could disrupt patient care and impact the organization reputation. That's important, especially with the health care system. Identifying these risks allowed the organization to develop and implement effective disaster recovery and business continuity plans. Again, we will talk about those in a separate session as well. You want to test to make sure you have a smooth transition because change management is going from one state into another state. From one current state to another current state. So testing helped the organization prepare the organization and its employee for the changes, minimize resistance, promoting a smoother transition. So ensuring smooth transition enables stakeholders, whoever's are involved to understand the impact of the changes and gain confidence in its effectiveness. Suppose an e-commerce company, they're moving to a new order system, new management order system to improve order processing, inventory management and customer service. So how do you want to make sure that the transition is smooth? Well, the company conducts various tests to prepare the organization and its employees for the change. What could be some simple test? Well, training and support material testing. The company developed training material, user guides and tutorial for the new system. While testers and a simple group of employees review these material to ensure they are clear, accurate and comprehensive. So by providing effective training, the company helped employees quickly adapt because now they are familiar. They know the system. They know how to learn it. It minimize resistance. You can have process workflow testing and this works, you know, process workflow testing is a good testing for any system you are implementing. The company tests the new system impact on the organization processes workflows to ensure that the system aligns with the company operational's environment. Here what you're looking for areas that you might need additional adjustments or optimization to ensure smoother transition and minimizing disruption to daily operation. Pilot testing. What is a pilot testing? Well, basically company conduct a pilot, basically a sample deploying to a small group of people. They want you want people to use it, but not everyone. Just a small group of people. This is what pilot testing is. Specific department before before before a full scale rollout. What's Google doing right now is is rolling barred their artificial intelligence to only Google employee. This is basically a pilot pilot testing. The pilot testing allowed the organization to assess the transition process, identify any potential challenges, and this is what Google trying to do and make necessary adjustments before implementing the system and through the entire organization or to the customers to the outside customers. Maintain quality and compliance. Well, what does that mean? Testing help organization maintain quality and regulatory compliance by confirming that the changes meet the necessary requirements and do not compromise the organization performance. And this this is important for companies like a pharmaceutical company that are heavily regulated. Suppose a pharmaceutical company is implementing a new laboratory information management system, LIMS, to improve the efficiency of laboratory processes, data management, and reporting. Well, the company here, the pharmaceutical, they operate in a highly regulated industry and they must maintain a strict quality standard and regulatory compliance. Because you're looking at the fourth or fifth decimal, making sure everything is in compliance. Now, during this, the testing phase, the company ensure that the new system meets the necessary requirement and does not compromise the organization performance. What could be some examples that they can do? Well, quality testing standard. They conduct tests to ensure that the new system established quality standards such as accuracy, consistency in the data, sample tracking, and reporting. They verify that the system can handle the required volume of data, process information without errors, and maintain the quality performance. They want to do regulatory compliance testing. The pharmaceutical company again operates under strict regulation. They might have to comply with the good manufacturing practices, good laboratory practices. They can test all of those. They test the new system to ensure it complies with these regulation, including data integrity, traceability, and auditory requirement. They also verify that the system supports electronic signature, proper access control to maintain compliance with regulation, and other required issues as well. You want to validate the data, data validation and verification. Tests will perform data validation and verification to make sure the accuracy and reliability of the data within the system. They create test cases with both expected and unexpected inputs to see if it works, validating that the system process and store the data correctly and maintain data integrity. Basically, you're testing it to see if it works as expected. A fifth type of testing is monitor performance. The purpose of the testing is monitor performance, and this happens post-implementation. They allow the organization to monitor whether the changes are working as expected and make any necessary adjustment to ensure it meet the original objective. So suppose a telecommunication company, you know, have recently upgraded their infrastructure to support 5G. Well, providing faster internet speed and improved coverage to its customers. That's the whole purpose of the change. Well, after implementing the change, you want to conduct post-implementation testing to monitor to find out whether the performance of the upgraded network is working as expected and make the necessary changes to ensure it continue its meets its objective, which is what? Faster internet speed, improved coverage for the customer, secure network, so on and so forth. Well, what type of test you can perform? Well, you can perform network performance monitoring. So the company will continuously monitor key performance indicator of the upgraded network, such as latency, throughput, and signal strength to make sure it's working properly. They analyze this data to identify any performance issues or area where the network not meeting the expected standard that they set up, allowing them to make adjustments and optimize the network, because the whole purpose is to have a faster network. Customer experience testing. Well, you want to do some testing with the customers. The company conduct tests to assess customer experience, because remember, you wanted to give them the speed. This may involve measuring data speed, testing voice quality, because you want to improve this. Is it working as expected and monitoring video streaming performance, because you promise better service? Is it showing in, for example, video calls? By evaluating customer experience, you can identify issues that may impact the customer satisfaction, and again, make any necessary adjustments. So that's the purpose of the whole testing. You can do what's called load and stress testing, because remember, when it comes to a network, you might have high traffic at some point. You want to simulate high traffic scenarios to test whether the upgraded network can handle the ability. They have a load and stress testing to handle the increased load and demand. You want to analyze this network performance to see if it can handle peak usage period without degrading service quality, because how good is it? If it gets busy, the quality goes down. It's not good, because the purpose is to have high quality network. If any issues are identified, the company may make adjustments to ensure the network can handle the increased demand. So notice, when we do testing, the purpose is to find, that's what you test. When you take a test, when you take the CPA exam, the CMA exam, they want to know whether you know the material or not. So company test a new system, new IT system, to see whether it's working as expected. What is expected? What was the original objective of that software, of that system? Is it meeting its objective? You create tests to make sure it's meeting those objective. Now, once again, I'm going to be having a separate recording about specific system testing, system overall, because what I did here, I gave you specific examples to make the point. But there are certain terms, for example, security testing, functionality testing, performance testing, stress testing, or load testing. Those testing, they apply to any sort of a system. Here, I use them in a specific example, in a specific context, so you understand. But there are many terms that you need to be familiar with, which I will cover separately, and types of testing. But I use these examples here to illustrate the purpose of each test. What should you do now? Go to Farhat Lectures, look at additional MCQs, true, false, exercises, whatever you are studying for, additional lectures that's going to help you improve your performance. Good luck, study hard, and of course, stay safe.