Winston Churchill was a brilliant orator, known for his affecting speeches given during World War II, when he was Britain’s Prime Minister. Believe it or not, Churchill was plagued by a speech impediment, which he compensated for by carefully practicing what he would say.In User Acceptance Testing (UAT), VMC expert Galen Erickson also believes that communications need to be methodical and planned.

To communicate effectively in UAT, you have to know your audience. UAT is caught in between product owners, developers and end users; all have different perspectives and needs. What resonates with one party may not connect with another. UAT communications require knowledge of the business objective of each of these parties.

1. Product owners are most concerned with the impact of a bug. They prioritize many different stakeholders’ needs, they want to know if their product will go live, and they want to know how a solution is perceived. Communicating with this group revolves around the feedback garnered during UAT and who logged the issue.

2. Developers want detailed reproduction steps and technical requirements. They don’t care about who logged the issue; they want to identify the issue and fix it. They don’t care about business processes; they care about technical functionality. The UAT team needs to remember that these guys have worked on the product for months or years. It’s important to acknowledge that they built the tool and probably know it better than anyone.

3. End users want to know that the solution is going to help them do their job more efficiently and that it is not going to block anything they are currently doing. They don’t care about how other people use the tool; they care about getting their work done and getting their voice heard. It’s important to let them know that the UAT team understands the impact of an issue and that their feedback is forwarded to the right people.

Progress is often delayed or halted due to inefficient communications, causing the release to run behind schedule. What are you doing to avoid stutters and ensure that all stakeholders are on the same page?

Contact Galen Erickson at GalenEr@vmc.com or call 877.393.8622.