Over the last decades, ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems have become the de facto standard for translating business best practices into corporate information technology. Thus,integrated, configurable “off-the-shelf” solutions that can be readily implemented offer an effective way to optimise business processes. However, the success of standard ERP software implementation projects heavily depends on their quality assurance which, in turn, is influenced by the employed implementation life-cycle. Case studies at two major German
banks which implemented complex standard software systems for risk controlling illustrate how the main belongings and peculiarities of standard ERP software as well as life-cycleinherent weaknesses affect the testing strategy.
The evaluation results strikingly demonstrate the strong need for a testing strategy that supports the selection of test cases, quantification of test results, and estimation of the probability that the system implements its functional specification correctly. Therefore this paper includes a preliminary analysis of statistical approaches to testing. In addition, the lifecycle-inherent software quality management as defined by the SEI Capability Maturity Model
(CMM) is assessed. The assumption is that improved implementation process maturity or capability leads to a decreased number of observed faults during test.