Loadtester Methodology

Our company uses HP's Business Technology Optimization (BTO) cycle to deliver performance testing services. Our model is based on the illustration below:

How our services and deliverables align with BTO:

	TASK	ASSOCIATED DELIVERABLES
ASSESS
	Define Business Goals
	Organizational Impacts	Project Plan
	Define Roles Involved with Names	Project Plan, Performance Plan
	Hardware Information	Infrastructure/Component Diagrams
	Software Information	Performance Survey
	Other Environment Information	Performance Survey
	High Level Milestones	Project Plan
	High Level Timelines	Project Plan
	Calculate Expected ROI (Cost savings, process improvements)
SCOPE
	Choose Project	Performance Survey
	Choose Issues to solve	Performance Test Plan
	Measure Value Provided by Performance Services	Performance Survey
	Define Objective in measurable terms	Performance Survey
	Increase Scope to other LOB's
DESIGN
	Build High Level Roadmap	Performance Task List (this document)
	Create Performance Test Plan	Performance Test Plan
	Create Key Performance Indicators	Performance Test Plan, KPI Trending
	Define specific business processes	Performance Survey
	Sync Players	Project Plan
	Assign Resources	Project Plan
	Communications
	Create Best Practices Guide or new section for this project	Performance Services Best Practices Guide
	Training (official or on the job)
	Install software (Mercury or Client/Project Application)
IMPLEMENT
	Create Scripts based on Business Processes	Scripts
	Create Test Scenarios	Scenario files
	Create Monitors for the application	Scenario files
	Execute Load Testing	Scenario files
	Snapshot (Online Monitors)	Results Files
	Baselines (1 business process - 1 Vuser)	Results Files
	Bottleneck Identification (20% Test)	Results Files
	Benchmark (100% Test)	Results Files
	Scalability (120% or higher)	Results Files
	Stress (to first breaking point)	Results Files
	Volume/Soak (long periods to validate memory release)	Results Files
	Provide results to project team	Results Files, Analysis Files
	Maintain scripts and other files for future use (versioning)
	Maintain test environment for future use
VALIDATE
	Use results to prove out ROI - KPI Trending over time	KPI Trending document
	Document value for project	Performance Services ROI Executive Summary
	Create High Level Summary of ROI for upper management	Performance Services ROI Executive Summary