Data Warehousing >
Steps >
Quality Assurance
Task Description
Once the development team declares that everything is ready for further testing, the QA
team takes over. The QA team is always from the client. Usually the QA team members
will know little about data warehousing, and some of them may even resent the need to
have to learn another tool or tools. This makes the QA process a tricky one.
Sometimes the QA process is overlooked. On my very first data warehousing project, the
project team worked very hard to get everything ready for Phase 1, and everyone thought that
we had met the deadline. There was one mistake, though, the project managers failed to
recognize that it is necessary to go through the client QA process before the project can go
into production. As a result, it took five extra months to bring the project to production
(the original development time had been only 2 1/2 months).
Time Requirement
1 - 4 weeks.
Deliverables
- QA Test Plan
- QA verification that the data warehousing system is ready to go to production
Possible Pitfalls
As mentioned above, usually the QA team members
know little about data warehousing, and some of them may even resent the need to
have to learn another tool or tools. Make sure the QA team members get enough education
so that they can complete the testing themselves.