Notice: applying this to your agency.
The IT Project Resources are not meant to replace your agency’s internal project management practices or prescribe how you must operate. Instead, they offer concepts and tools that can strengthen delivery by providing a scalable framework for project level coordination. All project documentation should be maintained throughout each stage in alignment with agency policies and, where applicable, WaTech requirements and oversight expectations.
Stage 6 validates system configuration, business workflows, and integration behavior to ensure they function as intended before formal testing begins.
This stage serves as a critical checkpoint to confirm that the solution is stable, aligned with approved requirements, and ready to progress into quality assurance and user acceptance testing.
Teams conduct structured walkthroughs of key workflows, verify configuration against documented requirements, and confirm that interfaces and data exchanges operate correctly. This early validation is designed to surface issues while they are still easy to resolve and to build confidence in the system’s readiness for more rigorous testing.
For initiatives involving external customers, agencies should also ensure that customer participation is intentionally integrated into Stage 6 validation activities. This includes engaging representative end users in walkthroughs, confirming that workflows reflect real customer needs and behaviors, and validating that the solution meaningfully improves the customer experience. Applying a strong customer lens at this stage ensures that requirements are being met not only from a business perspective but also from the standpoint of the Washingtonians the system is intended to serve.