Client Background
The client is a leading bank headquartered in Bahrain that undertook a full replacement of its core banking system. A transformation of this scale depends as much on disciplined execution of testing, data migration and cutover as on the new platform itself, with multiple vendors, business units and surround systems needing to move in lockstep. The bank needed an independent governance layer to hold these activities to agreed standards and to keep management and regulators informed. Cedar was engaged to provide programme governance for the core banking transformation through testing, migration, cutover and early post-go-live stabilisation.
Cedar’s Approach
Cedar applied a structured programme governance approach built on signed-off approach notes, clear entry and exit criteria, dedicated owners and real-time issue resolution, applied consistently across each critical stage of the transformation.
Functional Testing Governance – Cedar ensured SIT and UAT scope stayed within the signed-off functional specifications, secured steering committee sign-off of the testing approach and exit criteria, promoted end-to-end journey-based test cases, set up joint IT and business war rooms for real-time defect resolution, and ran parallel test streams in separate environments for specialised areas.
Non-Functional Testing – For performance testing, Cedar drove an architecture and hardware review, scoped load testing across APIs and the bank's highest-traffic areas, and required repeatable test data plus endurance and stress runs. For security testing, it enforced dedicated daily reporting, defect classification aligned to information security, a dedicated vendor team and risk committee decisions on patches affecting functionality, supported by automation packs for regression.
Data Migration and Dress Rehearsals – Cedar governed mock migrations and dress rehearsals through a workshop-built run plan with pre-defined timings, regular checkpoints, named activity owners and escalation paths, and tracked every observation to closure in subsequent cycles. Issues surfaced in rehearsals, including miscommunication, single points of failure, extraction script errors, undocumented runbook steps, environment inconsistencies and surround-system data syncing, were each paired with a mitigation.
Simulations, Cutover and Communication – Cedar structured branch and business simulations with department checklists and formal sign-offs, managed cutover challenges through agreed workarounds such as parallel uploads and finance-validated forward-fix entries, and coordinated staff, customer and central bank communications on planned downtime.
Strategic Outcome and Way Forward
The governance model gave the bank a controlled path through testing, rehearsals and cutover into post-go-live, with issues encountered at each stage escalated early and resolved through pre-agreed mitigations rather than ad hoc decisions. Management and the central bank were kept informed through structured, milestone-based communication, and business units took part in simulations with clear ownership and sign-off.
The key learnings were codified into a reusable delivery toolkit covering testing, non-functional testing, data migration, dress rehearsals, simulations, cutover and communication, giving the bank a tested playbook for future platform changes and major releases.