Testing 1, 2, 3 …Processes, Strategies, and Tools to Manage Software Testing

Challenge Exercise Scenario

State of Nirvana: Testing the SACWIS Title XIX Interface

Objectives:

1. To develop and present a test plan for the mandatory SACWIS Title XIX Interface.
2. Obtain additional funding to support an intensive, short-term testing effort.

Audience: Commissioners and Chief Information Officers (CIOs) of the Nirvana Department Human Services (NDHS) and the Nirvana Department of Medical Assistance Services (NDMAS).

Time: 45 minute presentation (total)

Key Considerations:

• You need to convince the Commissioners that investing additional resources for testing now will be cost-effective.
• You need to demonstrate to the CIOs that you have a comprehensive test plan that will help ensure that the Title XIX interface works correctly.

Scenario:

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has notified the State of Nirvana that they are in jeopardy of losing federal financial participation (money) for their SACWIS system unless the Title XIX Interface is completed in 6 months. Additional resources have been committed to bring on more resources for development, but no additional resources have been dedicated for the testing effort.

One of the SACWIS system requirements is to have a bi-directional interface between the SACWIS system and the state’s Title XIX system. Per ACF AT-OSS-05: “The interface between the Title XIX system and the SACWIS must (1) provide for the exchange of information needed by the State Medicaid eligibility system to calculate and track Medicaid eligibility for children in foster care, (2) allow for the automatic exchange of common and/or relevant data between the two systems (to prevent duplicate data entry), and (3) capture the data necessary to report AFCARS foster care element #63 (this element indicates whether the child is eligible for, or receiving assistance under Title XIX).”

The Title XIX Interface requires cooperation between two separate State agencies – the Department of Human Services (NDHS) which is responsible for child welfare services and the Department of Medical Assistance Services (NDMAS) which is responsible for Medicaid services. The NDHS SACWIS system is relatively new, having been developed in a Dot.Net framework with an Oracle back-end. The Medicaid Management Information System (MMIS) which contains all the necessary data for the interface runs off an old legacy mainframe. Both the NSACWIS and NMMIS are connected to the Nirvana Network (N2), a secure, state-owned network, making the secure transmission of data easier than having to go across the Internet.

Unfortunately, there has just been a change in administration, and the Commissioners and CIOs of both DHS and DMAS are new. The Governor is a famous NASCAR driver with no government experience, and she has appointed her pit crew as her agency heads. All the CIOs are former mid-level managers from a small technology company that had sponsored the Governor’s race car, so they are familiar with technology and application development, but not sophisticated in the management of complex enterprises.

NDHS does in-house development, testing, and system maintenance with a combination of state employees and contractors available through a body shop contract. Additional funds have been earmarked for the 6 month period to hire two developers; however, no additional funds have been allocated to account for the increased workload associated with testing.

NDMAS has a contract with a third party, Rich and Healthy Incorporated, for the development, testing, and maintenance of the NMMIS system. NDMAS continually struggles with balancing the needs of providers, front-line eligibility workers, and the available resources under the Rich and Healthy contract for change orders.

Currently, NDHS has a dedicated development team for its NSACWIS system and relies on end-users from county offices to do their user acceptance testing. NDHS uses no automated tools for testing at the current time, so all testing must occur at the central state office in the capital. From a development methodology standpoint, NDHS does follow a structured development process and does a good job in developing user requirements. However, testing has traditionally been done in an ad-hoc fashion with no formal agency strategy and no specific overarching test plan for a particular project. In the development of other NSACWIS modules, there has been little traceability and not much communication among testers involved in the different phases of testing.

The NSACWIS Program Manager and one of the lead programmers have recently come back from an HHS-sponsored training on testing methodology and have new information and ideas to bring back to Nirvana on how to structure and execute the testing function throughout the systems development lifecycle.

As in other States, Nirvana has a real shortage of workers at all levels of the organization. The Child Welfare Services Program Manager (SACWIS business owner) is deathly afraid of losing federal financial participation for the NSACWIS system because she knows that being de-funded by the federal government will mean that resources from her budget will be used to offset to loss, meaning that funds used to pay for social work staff will go to systems development and maintenance.