Spring 2005 Newsletter: Project Management & Contact Center Load Testing
Originally published April 21, 2005

Letter from the Publisher
by Jim Jenkins

Letter from the Publisher

Spring 2005

I write to you on a brief hiatus from our busy trade show schedule. We attended many successful shows in the first quarter and have a full calendar throughout the spring and summer. Trade shows are such a great way for us to reconnect with familiar faces and introduce ourselves to others. Welcome to those of you who are first-time readers of the newsletter. In this edition, we look at load testing from a project management perspective, introduce you to our Partner Alliance Program and share other important news and information.

I’d like to highlight one particularly significant event that happened to IQ Services. Last quarter, we joined the Mercury Technology Alliance and Solutions Partner Programs. Mercury Interactive Corporation is the global leader in business technology optimization (BTO) providing products that help customers optimize the business value of information technology. As a member of Mercury’s alliance programs, IQ Services can work with Mercury and our mutual customers to provide end-to-end testing including voice and network traffic. This testing will facilitate optimization of total system performance and demonstrate that systems are meeting performance requirements. We look forward to this new business relationship and the opportunities it will bring.

I hope all of you are off to a good start in 2005. We had a busy and challenging first quarter and expect the pace and challenge to increase as the year progresses. If you have topics you’d like discussed in the newsletter please let us know. Our objective is to provide you with information that will be helpful to your business activity with a dose of personal content. Thank you for participating.

Sincerely,

Jim Jenkins
President & CEO

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Communication and Contact Center Load Testing: A Project Management Perspective

A Project Management Perspective

A key objective of every project plan is risk management. As a project manager, it is critical to know your entire system works as designed when you implement business solutions that include complex integration of the latest communication and customer service technologies. You must be confident that all elements of the system are set up correctly and all of the options for customer interaction work as designed when the system experiences required traffic levels. Demonstrating system performance before you go live with real customers is vital to managing your risk relative to your customer satisfaction and ROI objectives. Properly planned and implemented load testing provides you the best assurance for going live without problems that frustrate your customers and erode your ROI.

The key steps in developing and implementing your testing activity are:

• A specific description of system performance objectives
• A detailed test plan that results in demonstration of the performance objectives.

The following testing activity should be included in the plan:

• Unit level testing (i.e. code and feature/function testing) at key points in the development process. (While this is not the subject of this article it does need to
  be noted.)
• Load testing of key subsystems during the development process
• End-to-end load testing with the production database before cutover to production

The amount of detail needed in the plan depends on the complexity of the business solution and system being implemented. In any case, a well thought out plan and successful implementation of that plan is key to managing risk on the project.

I mention unit testing above because it is important to emphasize that without thorough unit level and feature/function testing, your load test may become nothing more than very expensive unit level testing. Even worse, the results in these cases may not be conclusive relative to overall system performance.

In many systems (especially large, complex systems), load testing during the development process can identify problems that would greatly impact cost and schedule if not found until the end of the development activity. Load testing during development can include call activity through subsystems or IVR platforms to verify system setup and find defective components, emulation of host and CTI traffic without going through the telecommunications or actual online channels, and call activity that is connected directly to an IVR or ACD without going through the PSTN. By load testing during development, you can catch issues before they become expensive, time consuming problems down the road.

One of the best risk management activities a project manager can do is to plan load testing far enough ahead of the cutover date to allow for corrective action in the system. Many of the project managers we work with schedule a load test 1-2 weeks before the cutover to production. Load testing at this phase of a project exercises the system from end to end. Test scenarios start with a real call through the PSTN and are complete when call interactions have been successfully executed. Test scenarios may include lookups into background systems and performance of key functions like call routing and screen pops. It is important to use test scenarios that cover all risk areas and real traffic levels that demonstrate system performance. If your system also involves online activity through the Internet or intranet, you may find it effective to have this activity run concurrently with call activity.

The objective of load testing is to represent real activity from all sources that affect system performance. If the test objectives are met during this testing, you should be confident the system will perform as required when you go live with real customers. If the test illuminates issues within the system, the data from load testing should help facilitate quick problem identification and resolution. This fast resolution results in successful, on time system implementations that leave both customers and project managers satisfied.

As a project manager, you want to keep your projects on schedule and within cost. You are well aware of the problems when you go over on either. One of the best ways to avoid these problems and ensure satisfied customers is to manage risks with a well thought out test plan and implementation.

Jim Jenkins
President & CEO

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Partner Alliance Program Benefits Partners and Customers

Contact center system implementations are expensive, time consuming endeavors. With a short business plan ROI and an even shorter window of opportunity for user acceptance, successful implementations need to work properly from the moment they go live. Comprehensive testing plans that include a "test drive" of the system can ensure a project’s success.

People who manage projects like these know that past performance means little to a customer who is concerned about their current project. Customers want to work with someone who can not only get the job done, but can also expertly lead them through a formalized acceptance process to prove the implementation works properly. Good consultants, integrators and project managers know the value a testing plan can bring to a project in terms of system acceptance and customer satisfaction. For those smart individuals and their customers, we offer the IQ Services Partner Alliance program.

IQ Services’ Partner Alliance program is made up of a select group of independent companies that team up with IQ Services to provide testing and monitoring services to their customers. IQ Services provides thePartner Alliance with expert support that helps them improve the quality of their projects. Our partners tell us time and again that they can’t imagine their projects going as smoothly and successfully if they hadn’t used IQ Services load testing.

Knowing this, we work hard to support our Partner Alliance program members and offer them many benefits. When a company joins the Partner Alliance, IQ Services provides them with a comprehensive marketing kit that includes brochures, sample reports, signage and other materials critical to educating customers about testing. We also work hard to educate the partners by offering orientation for all of the services we offer. We know it is important to give our partners the tools to learn and teach their customers about the value of testing and the difference it can make in the success of a project.

The support continues once a partner decides it is ready to offer IQ Services tests as part of a project. Partner Alliance members receive thorough support during a sale, following a sale and through the completion of a project. During a sale, IQ Services can provide partners with assistance on conference calls regarding the project, proposals for testing and RFPs for testing services. Following a sale, we can help partners create a testing plan, write a scope of work, provide guidance and deliver comprehensive, accurate reports. We also provide the support necessary to make sure that the results of their test session and associated reports are clear. Once a project is complete, IQ Services can help make sure the system continues to work as expected with HeartBeat™ availability monitoring.

Partners also receive monthly updates with valuable information and exclusive offers available only to them and their customers. Additionally, IQ Services posts Partner Alliance member logos and a link to their site on www.iq-services.com.

The only requirements of the Partner Alliance program are that the company commits to working with IQ Services to expand their offerings to their customers. We don’t set sales quotas or expectations, we simply ask that partners include information about IQ Services in marketing materials and proposals as they deem appropriate.

The benefits of the Partner Alliance are passed on to the companies that work with Partner Alliance members. From our experience, we’ve learned that customers who work with the Partner Alliance are more satisfied with their project managers (the partner) because they are confident that their systems work. The Partner Alliance members are extremely knowledgeable about our services and help their customers determine the best time and format for testing, thus increasing the overall value of the tests. Customers then have recorded, repeatable and accurate data that detail their system’s performance. The end result is a successful system implementation that creates satisfied users, agents and customers.

If you’d like information on becoming a partner or are interested in working with one of our partners, please let us know. We are always interested in new partners and can put you in touch with the partner of your choice.

Cheryl Fortier
Direct Sales Project Manager

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Asked & Answered

If you have a question that you'd like to see answered in our quarterly newsletter, contact us!

Q: I know I need to test my new solution, but I have no idea how to do it. Can you help me?

A: Yes! We frequently work with people who need assistance to define the testing component of their new system implementation plan. IQ Services’ testing experts have years of experience calculating proper load levels for a solution, configuring test cases, determining test objectives, selecting appropriate report styles and much more. We will help you every step of the way. Our simple implementation documents make it easy for you to submit the information we need to set up your StressTest™. Before your test, we’ll help you understand what you’ll be able to see in real time via ORCA™, the Online Reporting and Charting Application, as well as how we’ll formally report the analyzed test results.

If you need help over and above what we provide standard with our test support services, we offer consulting services to help you with more in-depth needs. One of our consultants can work with you to create an RFP, respond to an RFP, develop a business solution life cycle test plan and define acceptance criteria to help you determine when a new or upgraded solution is ready for production. We also have the expertise to provide testing project management support that goes beyond the limits of the StressTest™ or HeartBeat™ implementation. This is only a sampling of the work our consultants can provide. Once you’ve realized you need to test your business solution, contact IQ Services for help throughout your project.

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Fermentations

Many people do not understand how wine is made or how it ages. In order to help you understand more about wine, it may be helpful to go over a few basics about alcoholic beverages in general.

We can classify three basic types of alcoholic beverages: wine, beer and liquor. Wine is fermented fruit juice. Wines can be made out of pure grape juice or combined with other fruit juices. Sometimes wines are made with no grape juice at all. Even vegetables have been used to make wine. Honey wine (mead) is fermented honey. Wine is a living thing and continues to age and mature after it is bottled. Beer on the other hand, will not improve with age after it is bottled. It will lose its taste and/or become flat. Liquors will continue to age and mature only while they are in the barrels, which is why 12-year-old scotch is better than 8-year-old scotch. Once bottled, however, liquors will not improve with age.

Now you can understand why wineries normally include the vintage year as part of the label information. This information gives you an idea of how old (mature) the wine is and also allows for judgment as to the initial quality of the wine; some vintage years are better than others because of the growing conditions the grapes experienced in the vineyards. The wine we make at our home is made with grapes. We also make mead from time to time as a dessert wine.

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