An article on Smart Grid News identified four key activities that resulted in successful programmes. These were requirements definition,, program governance, risk management and user acceptance testing.
Good set really. I would say all four of them are contributed to by effective acceptance testing (especially the UAT one of course).
For requirements defintion it said "Strong requirements definition is a must, but requirements also must adapt. Business requirements are rarely the same at the end of a project as they were at the outset due to changes in the market, customers, regulations and corporate leadership."
This is true of aceptance testing requirements definition. People often forget that the business acceptance criteria change and that what may have been acceptable at the start of a programme is no longer sutiable even though it perfectly matching the acceptance criteria of the delivery project.
For the User acceptance it said "IT is about empowering people. IT tools won’t work if users don’t adopt them. It is important to involve the user community from any program’s earliest stages and to perform acceptance testing that is measurable and encourages open communication."
This is true for the user aceptance test. I have heard of user acceptance tests that involved no users it is not a desirable approach.
