Testing testing.

• Author: Blaser, Mitchell E.
• Position: Preparing for Year 2000 technology problem - Includes related article on team work on Y2K problem

If testing your systems for Y2K compliance takes 60 percent of the entire project's time, is there any way you can be ready?

By now, you know the Year 2000 technology problem has moved to the front burner; CFOs say it's their single most pressing challenge.

But you may not know that, as your business begins testing its information systems for Y2K compliance, you may face a number of issues that could produce delays and push your initiatives dangerously close to the January 1, 2000, cut-off (and those systems that store future dates, such as insurance policy expirations, must be fixed before we ring in the millenium). The two greatest risks are underestimating the work required to be Y2K compliant and failing to understand the full consequences of completing this effort on time.

As a CFO or other senior financial executive, you often have the ultimate responsibility for approving Y2K project costs, reporting related exposures to regulators and keeping your board of directors up to date on the firm's compliance measures. So as you test systems and examine an array of what-if scenarios, you should understand what can go wrong and what you can do about it.

Of the six fundamental phases of your firm's Y2K compliance initiative - inventorying your systems, determining which will be affected, assessing your risk, remediating, testing and implementing changed programs - testing is one of the stickiest.

The Testing Template

As you prepare to test your systems, you first need to establish a consistent methodology. This is especially true for larger organizations with numerous divisions and independent operations. Even if different business units use entirely different hardware configurations and software packages, every organization should have a uniform approach to testing that all operations can implement.

At J&H Marsh & McLennan, Inc., a subsidiary of Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc., we began a Y2K compliance initiative in 1996, so the effort is well along. Our Y2K testing methodology, developed by the technology and information services department, sets minimum standards to be followed by all of our technology operations. It includes guidelines for organizing test teams and for developing a test plan; templates for process administration and documentation; a test script that contains both mandatory dates to be tested and a list of additional dates that may affect certain functions within an application; and formats for performing tests and...