Defining your performance testing criteria is essential to performance testing success.

By determining your performance service level agreements (SLAs), you're ensuring that the performance requirements of the business is quantifiable and that the performance testing teams are aware of th goals so they have a target to achieve.

It's not always a simple task as this can require a lot of communication and negotiation between project stakeholders. Business analysts should first try to understand the application, the functionality required, and the performance expectations. They then document these and discuss them with business stakeholders and customers.

For performance testing, here are the steps to follow in order to quantify criteria and have the testing up to individual standards:

• Business analysts, project managers, and product owners interview customers and business stakeholders to understand performance expectations.
• Analyze competitors (if business counterparts haven't already) in the market to understand existing performance targets that competitor products have set and are achieving.
• Contact technical teams and discuss the business performance targets with them. Understand the feasibility of these targets.
• If there are conflicting expectations, connect the business and technical stakeholders to determine a universal, absolute performance expectation for all stakeholders.
• Document the final service level agreements and share it with the stakeholders.

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