The Challenge
By the time UAT was underway, delays had accumulated in earlier phases. The go-live date hadn't moved, which meant the pressure fell on UAT. The phase that needed the most structure had the least time available.
Five business units were testing against their own key processes with no coordination across them. What should have been one cohesive UAT effort was five separate efforts running in parallel.
Data wasn't ringfenced, and shared data sets were reused across teams and test cycles, which led to contamination. When your test data isn't clean, your results can't be trusted, and you can't make a confident go-live decision on results you don't trust.
The entire programme ran remotely during COVID-19. The informal mechanisms that hold large programmes together were simply not available. What replaced them had to be intentional and structured, but there wasn't yet a playbook for that at this scale.
The business needed more confidence in the programme before they could move forward, and that confidence had to be earned.
Resulting Solution
As the scale of the UAT challenges became clear, Resulting stepped into the lead coordination role.
The first priority was the plan - not rewriting it from a desk, but reworking it with the business. Resulting sat down with each of the five business units, worked through their realities, and rebaselined plans around what was genuinely deliverable. When the business sees their input in the plan, they start to own it.
Governance was introduced to give the programme a real framework for control: how UAT would be conducted, how decisions would be made, and how blockers would be resolved.
A daily rhythm of calls kept momentum active, with a morning session to set targets and an end-of-day session to align senior leaders on progress. Reporting was overhauled and leaders got honest insight, not filtered progress updates.
Data was ringfenced, environments were validated, and role-based testing was given a structured, documented approach. Multi-vendor teams were coordinated across end-to-end scenarios, including complex trade promotions and real-time process integrations.
Benefits Delivered
With rebaselined plans and governance in place, the programme found its footing. Teams operating in isolation started working as one. The business, once skeptical of the entire timeline, could see progress they trusted.
Wave 1 completed UAT successfully, and coupled with the rigor and documented evidence, that gave the business genuine confidence to move to go-live.
What happened next said more than the go-live itself. Co-op asked Resulting to lead UAT for Waves 2 and 3, both carrying more complex deployment scope than Wave 1.
When a client asks you back for the hardest parts of the programme after seeing what you do under pressure, that's not a courtesy, that's a verdict.
Co-op moved from a UAT phase under significant pressure to a go-live everyone could stand behind. Then they did it twice more.
Conclusion
UAT complexity isn't unusual on large-scale SAP transformations. Fragmented testing, data management challenges, and the pressure of tight timelines are things we see regularly. What they have in common is that they're manageable, with the right structure and the right support in place.
Resulting steps into programmes, establishes control, and gives your business the confidence it needs to make a go-live decision it can stand behind. We work with your team, not around them. We tell you the truth about where you are and stay until the job is done.
If you have a UAT phase coming up, or you're already in one and things aren't where they need to be, talk to us.
