Our test manager Georgina Hulbert gives an insight into life at the heart of the DCR PMO
07:00 Wake-up, school run, coffee, nerdle….. ready to tackle the day as a test nerd as part of the Dorset Care Record (DCR) Programme Management Office (PMO). For anyone not 100% clear, the definition of ‘nerd’ is – NOUN….a foolish person who lacks social skills or is boringly studious. Seems a little harsh to me, but I do love testing!
08:30 There are usually some regular tasks to take care of first thing, aided and abetted by the team of brilliant Business Analysts who support the testing. Monitoring known issues in our test environment for example to try and establish a pattern and fix a problem. Issues that take time and patience to resolve. The satisfaction when we achieve a breakthrough is very gratifying.
09:15 Today I’m dealing with a minor emergency – we’ve identified a slight bug in the live system. Luckily, these happen very rarely as we have processes in place to make sure the DCR and the myDCR patient portal are secure and working as they should be. With dozens of staff accessing the DCR daily and potentially a good proportion of Dorset’s residents as myDCR gets rolled out, the system needs to be as perfect as we can get it. Phew – problem averted and all’s well in my world again.
11:00 Next, I need to finalise the test plan for the next software release. This is a complex release and will involve full testing of DCR and myDCR by 9 different services as well as the PMO testing team. Some of the changes are to key parts of the system for example the medicines viewer, so particular care is needed. With the plan, we’re trying to balance speed – to deliver benefits as quickly as we can – with a very robust approach to testing to reduce the risk as far as possible when delivering new software. Given the nature of the DCR, we always come down on the side of robust testing to ensure patient safety for our Dorset residents and the best experience for our Dorset residents.
15:00 A meeting with the Clinical Lead next. At this meeting I need to provide evidence that we’ve tested the current software release thoroughly enough that they are confident to sign off the project to move into the live, production environment. Moment of truth…. All good. The Clinical Lead is content with the work and the outcome and we’re ready to move forward to production.
16:30 Finally a ‘Go/No Go’ meeting. Are we ready to deploy the new software? Are we confident we’ve done enough? Are we clear about the deployment next steps and do we have a contingency plan if something unexpected happens? The team will be supporting the deployment at the weekend, so this is a really key moment where we get final sign-off to move ahead.
The best job!
Ends