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Testing as a Service
- Models
Discussion Paper
Jonathon Wright
October 2014
Is T
his
Bo
ok R
ight
For
Me
?
This eBook intended for
ALL AUDIENCE LEVELS
INTRODUCTORY
Introductory content is for software testing professionals who
are relatively new to the subject matter of the eBook.
Introductory eBook’s typically feature an overview of an
aspect of testing or guidance on understanding the
fundamentals of the subject at hand.
INTERMEDIATE
Intermediate eBook’s are for software testers who are already
familiar with the subject matter of the eBook but have limited
hands-on experience in this area. Intermediate level usually
focuses on working examples of a concept or relaying
experiences of applying the approach in a particular context.
ADVANCED
Advanced eBook content is for software testers who are, or
intend to become, experts on the subject matter. These
eBook’s look at more advanced features of an aspect of
software testing and help the reader to develop a more
complete understanding of the subject.
Ab
str
act The traditional focus of testing in many organisations has been on
quality assurance and return on investment over relatively long
baselines. Testing as a Function is increasingly being seen by many
organisations as a costly, barely justifiable overhead, which cannot
make a sufficient impact on quality or return on investment rapidly
enough even within modern enterprise delivery environments.
Perhaps an alternative approach is long overdue?
The current economic climate is making companies review their
approach to IT even more closely. The same vision could also
extend to IT services and particularly testing. Existing technologies
of service / network virtualisation, business process engineering,
cloud based test automation tools and rapid and easy internet
access allow for the delivery approaches that allow companies to
consume Testing as a Service and pay only for what they use.
There is no need to spend large sums on test environments, data
masking, test tool selection and maintenance. The use of cloud
based services mean you can select the right level of service at a
time when you need it and at the volumes you need it whether it
is one or one thousand testers on one or many environments,
located locally or around the world.
Bio
gra
ph
y
Jonathon Wright has over 15 years of
international automation experience with a number of
global organizations; including Deutsche Bank, Lehman
Brothers, Hitachi Consulting, Thomson Reuters, Xerox,
New Zealand Lotteries Commission, Unisys and Siemens.
He’s a serial blogger on
Test Automation as a Service (TaaaS.net). He’s also on
twitter at @Jonathon_Wright
Jonathon also contributed to the best-selling book
Experiences of Test Automation: Case Studies of Software
Test Automation, Dorothy Graham & Mark Fewster, and
a number of eBook’s on Testing as a Service models
(systems dynamics & thinking), Advanced UFT 12 for Test
Engineers Cookbook (Testing-store.com) and API testing
in the cloud (service & network virtualisation).
He is the founder of Automation Development Services
(Automation.org.uk) as well as presenting at various
international testing conferences, such as Gartner
(London), STARWest (California), Fusion (Sydney), ANZTB
(Melbourne), EuroSTAR (Gothenburg and Dublin), BCS
SIGIST (London) further detail about Jonathon can be
found at (www.linkedin.com/in/automation).
Tab
le o
f co
nte
nts
1. Why as a Service?
2. Testing as a Service (TaaS)
Business Lifecycle Management
Software as a Service
Solution Delivery Lifecycle integration (SDLCi)
Critical Service Components
o Compare Testing
o TestAdvisor™
o Testing Alliance
o Testing Marketplace
1. W
hy a
s a S
erv
ice
?
The testing landscape is changing, the traditional approach to providing business value through testing is
constantly being challenged. So businesses need to constantly re-examine the real value of testing
services as an integral part of their overall delivery capabilities.
The question is: are traditional Testing as a Function (TaaF) as part of the Software Development
Lifecycle (SDLC) model still valid? or whether Testing as an Activity (TaaA) needs to develop a new
Solution Delivery Lifecycle Integration (SDLCi) model supporting Business on a Page (BoaP) to
provide business visibility through powerful Model-Based Design (MBD)1 techniques?
Traditionally, with the Software Development Lifecycle (SLDC) (e.g. Waterfall) key Testing as a
Function (TaaF) resources were retained in-house, in order to benefit from their extensive domain
expertise and increased understanding of business requirements.
The tendency has been to rely on complex hybrid resourcing models made up of internal resourcing
and/or external resourcing (near shore, mid shore and off shore), to strive for Testing Centres of
Excellence (TCOE).
Modern approaches such as Distributed Enterprise Agile Delivery (DEAD) techniques that include
Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD) / Large Scale Scrum (LeSS) adopt more Testing as an Activity
(TaaA) approaches by utilising cross-functional teams that are re-useable, re-deployable and have
dynamic resource allocation. Such teams are no longer specific to purely Testing as a Function (TaaF)
but contribute to and integrate with other business deliverables as part of, the proposed SLDCi model.
This aligns with the EuroSTAR2 (2013) topic from conference chair Michael Bolton’s theme of
Challenging Testing? This explored the fundamental question as to who should be providing testing
services?
Similar questions have also been raised as to whether businesses should be retaining highly skilled
testing professionals specialising in areas such as performance and security when that is not their core
business offering? (e.g. a large supermarket chain spending £millions each year on building Testware
Automation Frameworks (TAF)).
Performance and security testing disciplines are good candidates for ‘Testing as a
Service’ models that can be provided at a fixed usage or output-based price3.
At a recent Gartner4 presentation, I had discussions on this topic with Gartner’s researchers. It was
apparent that the increased focus on business delivery is not just about chasing the ‘Hype Curve’ and
the ‘Magic Quadrants’ promoting the maturity of Solution Integrators (SI) but also:
How to drive true delivery innovation powered by the Cloud?
How to gain Actionable Business Insight (ABI) through Big Data?
How to embrace next generation Digital Enterprise, Internet of Things, Artificial / Social
Intelligence (Transcendence) or Quantum Computing?
How to apply System Thinking5 (analysis & synthesis) to System Dynamics6 (epistemic &
systemic entropy)?
How to measure / quantify the business value chain between Testing > Quality > Assurance?
1 Paul Gerrard, 2014, ‘New Model for Testing’ discussion paper published, 6th August 2014 2 Jonathon Wright, 2013, ‘Testing as a Service’ abstract for EuroSTAR, Gothenburg, Sweden, 13th Feb 2013 3 Sogeti, HP and Capgemini, 2014, World Quality Report (www.uk.sogeti.com/WQR2014-15) 2014-2015, UK, 16th October 2014 4 Jonathon Wright, 2014, ‘Ha(API)y testing in the hybrid-Cloud & beyond’ presented at Gartner ADM, London, May 19th 2014 5 Emma Langman, 2012, “Thinking about the Thinking in Systems Thinking” at Fusion, Sydney, 13th September 2012 6 Llyr Wyn Jones, 2014, ‘A Critique of Testing Primer: Meta-Mathematics and Meta-Development’, (http://www.agile-designer.com/resources/critique-
testing-primer/), 18th September 2014
How these approaches can empower businesses to improve the understanding of their core business
through abstraction or encapsulation of business processes by adopting the Business on a Page
(BoaP) model.
Over the last 5 years I have been actively exploring Testing as a Service 7 (TaaS) models. The key focus
has been on the core businesses differentiators such as agility, visibility and flexibility as achieved by:
Real adoption of Cloud platforms (Public, Private or Hybrid) and services (Infrastructure as a
Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS))
Improving the Time to Market through Continuous, Integration, Build & Delivery (CIBD),
‘Shift Left’ (Test-Driven Delivery) or ‘Shift Right’ (Service Delivery i.e. DevOps), ‘Shift Up’
(Business Acceptance Testing) and ‘Shift Down’ (User Acceptance Testing)
Providing dynamic Delivery Solutions (Products or Services) through pluggable Service
Oriented Architectures (SOA), Web Services and Application Programming Interfaces (API)
Managing Portfolios of these Services (API, SOA) over bespoke design of Applications for a
specific Customer or Client; no requirement8 for User Interface (UI) based apps in the future.
Focusing on the All-Channel Customer Experience3 through the Digital Enterprise journey for
Transformation, Transcendence or Convergence supported through Artificial / Social
Intelligence or Enterprise Gamification, rather than building platform specific User Interfaces
(UI) or native mobile apps.
Preparing for Testing in the Wild (TinW) with mobile devices9 exceeding the 7.2 billion people
on the planet and Machine to Machine (M2M) now in the excess of 250million (growing at a
faster rate than mobile) Near Field Communication (NFC) and Internet of Things (IoT).
Leveraging powerful Service / Network Virtualisation platforms that support Test First Delivery
(TFD) methodologies as the Solution delivery enabler not the delivery mechanism i.e. which
Technology or Platform
Migrating the impact & risk around Digital Disruption when it comes to Big Data and the
Netflix™ model for consuming Database as a Service (DBaaS) with real-time data masking
embracing moment in time (Small Data) to empower Business Intelligence (BI)
Integrate ‘As A Service’ Solution Integrators (SI) that provide the E2E Business Delivery
process linked to quality deliverables directly enforceable Service Level Agreements (SLA) with
defined Business Acceptance Criteria (BAC), measurable by Key Performance Indicators
(KPI) as well as complying with the businesses appetite for Risk Mitigation / Exposure
The above topics are too diverse to cover in detail here; so this discussion paper will focus on how to
integrate ‘As A Service’ models within Testing as an Activity (TaaA) in order to add clear value
backlog to the Business Delivery process through the following models:
Testing as a Service (TaaS) +
Test Platform as a Service (TPaaS) +
Test Infrastructure as a Service (TIaaS)
Test Automation as a Service (TAaaS) +
Functional Testing as a Service (FTaaS)
Performance Testing as Service (PTaaS) +
Mobile Testing as a Service (MTaaS)
Security Testing as a Service (STaaS)
In particular, the topics shown with a plus sign will be directly challenging the current industry perception of what the ‘As A Service’ models mean in terms of unlocking truly consumable testing services aided by the creation of a Global Testing Marketplace (GTM).
7 Jonathon Wright, 2011, ‘Testing as a Service’ presented at BCS SIGIST, London, 5th December 2011 8 James Whittaker, 2014, ‘Beyond the Web and Apps: The Domestication of Knowledge’ Agile Development Conference West, Las Vegas, 1st June 2014 9 GSMA Intelligence, 2014, CNET, (http://www.cnet.com/news/there-are-now-more-gadgets-on-earth-than-people/), EMEA, 6th October 2014
2. T
est
ing
as
a S
erv
ice
Mo
dels
What is the future of testing? The possibilities associated with Cloud computing provide instant scalability, flexibility and availability for testing on demand with no upfront investment. This provides the industry with a perfect opportunity to develop powerful testing delivery solutions. My keynote at the BCS SIGIST 4 (2011) on Testing as a Service (TaaS) explored the core principles of
this model:
Support for the Global Testing Marketplace (not just regional hubs)
o Instant Scalability, Flexibility and Availability
o Improved Communication, Collaboration and Mobility
Support end to end Business Lifecycle Management (BLM)
o Portfolio Lifecycle Management (PLM)
o Solution Lifecycle Management (SLM)
o Application Lifecycle Management (ALM)
Business Delivery Management integration (BDMi)
o Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC)
Waterfall
o Solution Delivery Lifecycle integration (SDLCi)
Distributed & Enterprise Agile (Organisational-wiDe) (DEAD)
Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)
Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD)
Large Scale Scrum (LeSS)
Test First Delivery approaches (i.e. ATDD, BDD, TDD & TDDi)
Business Process Mapping
o Business Process Modelling (BPMn v2.2)
o Business Process Intelligence (Actionable Business Insight)
o Business Process Design (Business Rules)
o Business Process Validation (Business Validation)
o Business Process Scenarios (Business Workflows)
o Business Process Data (Business Sanitised Data)
o Business Process Components (Business Transactions)
o Business Process Testing (‘Jigsaw’ Pieces)
Cloud-based test environments
o Test Platform as a Service (TPaaS) (on-demand)
o Test Infrastructure as a Service (TIaaS) (on-demand)
Cloud-based test resources
o Social Enterprise Collaboration (SEC) ready (portability/accessibility)
o Flexible/scalable access to global resources pools (on-demand)
Cloud-based test assets (Test Definition Layer)
o Test Specific Languages (TSL)
o Business Specific Languages (BSL)
o Validated against context sensitive Business Process Rules/Workflows/Data
Consumer/customer freedom
o Pluggable service delivery layers (Data In > Data Out (DIDO))
Business Lifecycle Management
The traditional approach to Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) (referring to a single application
instance) is no longer relevant as Solution Lifecycle Management (SLM) relates to the logical
groupings of applications that make up the solution landscape. This in turn has now been supplemented
by Portfolio Lifecycle Management (PLM) in which multiple solutions are represented by logical
groupings as part of a Business Portfolio or split by Business Domain or Workstream.
Business Lifecycle Management (BLM)10 encapsulates all previous delivery lifecycles whilst providing
support for Solution Delivery Lifecycle integration (SDLCi) across a number of different businesses
(i.e. manufacturing through to distribution).
Testing has often been considered to represent only a small part of the overall Software Development
Lifecycle (SDLC) along with analysis, development and deployment. Historically, there has been a
tendency for each function to blame the other and adopt a ‘throw it over the fence’ approach to
Application Delivery Management (ADM). This has resulted in silos of ‘As A Function’ delivery
functions which are highly inefficient and also the creation of Domain Tools and Delivery Resources
specific only to that function.
The concept behind Shift Left is the ability to start Testing as an Activity (TaaA) as far back as the
origin of the Business Definition (Problem, Idea or Challenge), Shift Up enables the continuous
visibility to Business Stakeholders (CIO / COO / CTO) throughout the Business Lifecycle
Management (BLM) from Problem Definition through to Solution Decommission. However, Shift
Left focuses on such activities as Analysis, Architecture and Development with greater emphasis
(and effectiveness) than the Shift Right activities from Go Live through to Decommission. and Shift
Down is the constant customer feedback loop (i.e. targeted end-users).
Thankfully the industry has already started to embrace these changes under such ‘As A Activity’
headings as Developer in Test (Shift Left) and DevOps (Shift Right) (The latter should not be
confused with the testing industry embracing Test in Dev or TestOps activities).
10 Jonathon Wright, 2014, PNL5242 Testing Centres of Excellence: HP ALM, expert panel discussion HP Discover, 3rd December 2014
The model below, presented at BCS SIGIST 7 (2011), shows the logical split between the Business
Layer and the Service Layer and how the Shift Left and Shift Right is the cross-communication
between domains through domain standards within each delivery phase.
Domain Standards such as CMMI, UML and ITIL are industry standards that wrap process around the
Communication layer between such delivery phases. The Language layer used has to be
unambiguous (e.g. Lojban which eliminates ambiguity unlike English which is great for poetry but
ambiguous when used for requirement definition) so must be in predicate logic (as used in applied
mathematics and physics (e.g. quantum mechanics or even quantum teleportation).
Domain Tools support the Solution Implementation and help provide integration throughout each
Delivery Implementation phase. For example Business Stories should not only be visible within
Business Story Method (BSM) domain tools but also within the Service Management (SM) domain
tools that are used within functions such as service delivery or production support. This enables all
Delivery Resources pools to operate within the same teams (as in SCRUM teams).
“Businesses should focus on their core business and maintain competitive
advantage within their marketplace and should focus on business, and not try to
be Testing Centres of Excellence (TCOE).” 7
The Business Solution Delivery Quality will always be driven by cost, benefit, time to market (‘cheap,
good, fast - the eternal conundrum’11) or the extended Delivery Pentagon ‘cost, benefit, time, risk,
quality’) which will determine the overall quality of the delivered product or service. However, when we
explore LEAN processes (such as Toyota’s factory models wherein the objectives are waste reduction
and to continuously strive to improve quality) we find it is in stark contrast in many of the practices within
the IT sector. For example, developing multiple similar products and services (such as foreign exchange
market (FX) platforms for each geo-based region) encourages waste by duplication of time and effort.
Another example is the lack of enforceable quality, not everyone in the organisation can ‘pull the stop
cord’ at any time if they believe a product or service may be at jeopardy. Only layers upon layers of
middle management instead of everyone in the SDLCi being responsible for quality.
How does this contrast to the IT as a Service (ITaaS) approach? After all, the core principle behind say
Cloud is to reduce the waste between the Logical / Physical service layers. For example:
Hardware as a Service (HaaS) +
11 Chris Amber, 2014, ‘Good, Fast, Cheap – The Eternal Conundrum’ presented at the TMF, London, 29th October 2014
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) +
Platform as a Service (PaaS) +
Software as a Service (SaaS) +
Testing as a Service (TaaS):
o Test Infrastructure as a Service (TIaaS)
o Test Platform as a Service (TPaaS)
o Test Automation as a Service (TAaaS)
o Functional Testing as a Service (FTaaS)
o Performance Testing as a Service (PTaaS)
o Mobile Testing as a Service (MTaaS)
o Security Testing as a Service (STaaS)
Real world examples of the models shown with a plus sign are covered in detail in the full eBook version
of Testing as a Service - Models that can be downloaded from www.leanpub.com/taas within the
appendix section on Testing as a Service (TaaS). These case studies give context to the complete end
to end flow between logical / physical server layers.
Software as a Service (SaaS)
Consider the SalesForce.com™ model which is the benchmark success story for the Cloud. It provides
Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions to businesses to enable them to build their business platform
around pluggable/interchangeable products and services. This begs the question: even if the
SalesForce.com™ are providing Business Platform as a Service (BPaaS), who is the best person to
test the target end solution?
Traditionally, businesses are involved not only with the initial business requirements and design phases
(i.e. Business Process Validation (BPV) of the target business processes/models) but also during
testing cycles such as User Acceptance Testing (UAT) but not always across the entire Solution
Delivery Lifecycle (SDLC) (development, deployment and support phases).
“Don’t assume the ecosystems (commercial or community) and other fulfilment
systems to be tested in anything but isolation.” - Julie Gardiner 12 (2012)
Business Acceptance Testing (BAT) is essentially always going to be a business activity (Shift Up) as
they best placed to wrap Business Acceptance Criteria (BAC) around the Solution Delivery as they
best understand the Business Domain. However, the introduction of complex Cloud ecosystems such
as Public, Private, Hybrid or Community presents new challenges and opportunities for the
connectivity and integration points for a number of logical / physical service layers:
Software as a Service (SaaS)
Hardware as a Service (HaaS)
Platform as a Service (PaaS)
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
The above topics are the reason why traditional enterprise businesses be starting to think about hiring
hardware engineers as well as software engineers given that their target product or service may run on
All-Channel Customer Experience platforms such as the Internet of Things (IOT) or Bring Your Own
Device (BYOD) that rely heavily on physical hardware such as System on Chip (SoC) or Near Field
Communications (NFC) components requiring Testing in the Wild (TinW) using Test Drones (TD)?
12 Julie Gardiner, 2012, STARWest, California, USA, 4th October 2012
Solution Delivery Lifecycle integration (SDLCi)
The answer instead is we need to strive for Solution Delivery Lifecycle integration (SDLCi) with
Solution Integrators (SI) who can provide Testing as a Service (TaaS) around each of the logical /
physical service layers. The major advantage would be that the quality gate points providing assurance
to the business by reducing the risk of ‘throwing it over the fence’ by defined transparent Business
Impact or Risk analysis around any changes to any software (logical) or hardware (physical) layers
which affect the overall Delivery Solution.
Compare this approach to the use of legacy release notes which documented new features and fixes in
terms of minor bug fixes for the Application Under Test (AUT) or hardware release notes –such as ZQ
calibration of the System on Chip (SoC). These provided no information about the Business Impact or
Risk13 whereas if you directly integrate the Solution Integrators (SI) target product or service into your
Continuous, Integration, Build and Delivery (CIBD) platform then you can assess the Test Impact
Analysis (TIA) of any changes/fixes to functionality.
Critical Service Components
Clearly there are a number of critical components which are of fundamental importance to the effective
provision of any service. One of these is having the right people in the right place at the right time i.e.
Just in Time (JiT) delivery. The challenges/opportunities of this component will now be discussed in the
context of the Solution Delivery Lifecycle integration (SDLCi) model. In terms of locating the ‘right’
people, assessing their capabilities and organising them, a number of options are available:
COMPARETESTING.COM
This is very different to the current traditional testing supplier model provided by Solution Integrators
(SI) who are not always up to speed with the rate of change within the industry14 (as evidenced by the
Digital Enterprise Convergence (DEC), All-Channel Customer Experience, Big Data (BD), Testing
in the Wild (TinW), Test Drones (TD), Internet of Things (IOT), Wearables (Google Cardboard to
Oculus VR), 3D Bioprinting, Social / Artificial Intelligence (AI)) and Quantum Computing (QC).
For a long time, Solution Integrators (SI) have wrapped managed services around testing resourcing
models e.g. body shops. But in a highly competitive testing market, their added business value is
13 BBC, 2014, RBS fined £56m over 2012 computer glitch, (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-30125728), London, 20th November 2014 14 Gartner, 2014, ‘Building your Digital Enterprise’ presented at the Gartner Event, Poland, 15th May 2014
becoming less apparent - especially when they try to undercut other Solution Integrators (SI) by using
blended rates for resourcing pools without necessarily having the range of skill sets needed “managers
willing and demanding outcomes and often promising outcomes, but without willing the resources
needed to deliver these outcomes15”.
Similarly, external recruitment agencies operating as Virtual Testing Specialists or even Virtual Test
Consultancies, often barely justify their daily mark-up rate (around 1/5th of the daily resourcing costs
models in the UK) to place appropriately skilled short term resourcing pools. The need for a comparison
platform for independent testing suppliers or vendors as mentioned at this years at STARWest16 keynote.
TESTADVISOR.NET
Social enterprise platforms such as LinkedIn™ allow direct access to skilled individuals without involving
third parties or preferred testing suppliers. The latter all too frequently do little to ensure the quality of the
resources they provide. They generally lack enforceable Service Level Agreements (SLA) or have
failing ‘service & support’ models. Consequently they cannot always justify their inflated daily rates
notwithstanding the investment needed to establish the relationship with the business or to gain
acceptance on preferred supplier lists / vendor supplier frameworks.
On the other hand, a key advantage of the Testing as a Service (TaaS) model is the ability to provide
global dynamic resource allocation through a Global Testing Marketplace (GTM) rather than relying on
regional supplier hubs. This model is based on common access to global resource pools which act in the
style of TripAdvisor™ (called TestAdvisor™) for rating potential resources based on instant feedback
from clients on delivered performance - rather than trying to put square pegs into round holes. But what
skill sets and what metrics apply in this context?
“Many of the best testers are technically minded and can program but a tester’s real skill
is applying testing knowledge to generate reusable test assets.” 7
TESTING-ALLIANCE.COM
At Fusion17 (2012) Elisabeth Hendrickson referred to resources being like a broken comb reflecting
individual strengths and weakness in a DNA-like combined skill matrix for the target delivery unit (or
scrum team). Given the duration of the fixed, short term work units (in minutes, hours, days, weeks) the
blended resource allocation is designed to complement each resource’s proven experience and skills
sets to provide the agility to deliver the target solution.
In turn does this mean we are no longer looking just for Testing as a Function (TaaF) resources (i.e.
anyone that describes themselves as a tester or developer) or Testing as an Activity (TaaA) resources
15 Patrick Hoverstadt, 2008, ‘The Fractal Organization: Creating Sustainable Organizations with the Viable Systems Model’, October 2008 16 Julie Gardiner, 2014, ‘Avoiding Vendor Driven Delivery’ keynote presentation at STARWest, California, USA, 15th October 2014 17 Elisabeth Hendrickson, 2012, ‘Acceptance Test Driven Development’ at Fusion, Christchurch, New Zealand, 10th September 2012
(i.e. the perfect agile resource profile of the ‘Jack of all trades, Jedi master of none’). But instead no-one
that has pigeonholing themselves into a category or label but instead who understand universal
Languages such as maths and physics with experience of Quantum Mechanics (QM) theoretic terms
to express the information theoretic concepts 𝑃𝐼(𝑥) = 𝑃𝐽(𝑓(𝑥)) ∀𝑥 ∈ 𝛺𝐼18 required in Solution Delivery
Lifecycle integration (SDLCi).
People who can also apply theories like Quantum Teleportation19 (QT) to solve the hard maths required
for Business on a Page (BoaP) or even may have hands on experience using Quantum Computing
(QC) devices such as the D-Wave's20 Quantum Annealing (QA) to business domain challenges like
quantifiable real options.
TESTING-MARKET.COM
A person’s contribution to a project can also be tracked in the same way that other Social Collaboration
platforms have been doing for decades (such as Xbox Live / PSN Gamer IDs, Crowdtesting platforms
such as TestBirds or uTest21 shown below or the above Game Dev Tycoon©). These score an
individual’s skills in specific areas to produce an accurate resource skills matrix together with quantitative
measures of their expected delivery capabilities.
18 Huw Price & Llyr Jones, 2014, Grid-Tools.com, (https://twitter.com/GridTools/status/487264150578790400), 10th July 2014 19 Félix Bussières, Nature Photonics, (http://www.nature.com/nphoton/journal/v8/n10/full/nphoton.2014.215.html), 21st September 2014 20 T. Lanting, Entanglement in QA, (http://journals.aps.org/prx/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevX.4.021041), 29th May 2014 21 uTest™, (http://blog.utest.com/2014/11/04/utest-platform-preview-new-dashboard-for-testers-on-paid-projects), 4th November 2014
This could be a game changer for the IT sector, as poorly skilled resource pools or lack of delivery focus
(due to being billed to multiple clients or projects) would be visible to the client. Consequently near-
shore/off-shore resources with a low blended rate but a low delivery capability would have to stand
comparison with multi-shore/on-shore, high delivery capability resources albeit at a higher rate – but with
the capability of being flexibly redeployed onto other work streams.
The Global Testing Marketplace (GTM) operates across all time zones providing 24/7 access to the
Testing Delivery Services platform in the Cloud (Public, Private, Hybrid or Community) allowing
Solution Integrators (SI) to provide the right capabilities at the right place and at the right time through
the ‘As A Service’ models and provides:
Improved Communication, Collaboration and Mobility to both the customer by providing
Business Delivery Management (BDM) through Solution Command Centres (SCC) as part of
the Solution Delivery Lifecycle integration (SDLCi) process.
Target resourcing pools with the Test Platform as a Service (TPaaS) and access to the Test
Infrastructure as a Service (TIaaS) required to access the Solution Under Test (SUT) and
report back to the Testing Command Centre (TCC).
In summary, these models offer Instant Scalability, Flexibility and Availability of consumable Testing
Delivery Services on a Pay as you Use (PAYU) basis.
Companies embracing Social Innovation through the adoption of Digital Enterprise will
wonder why they ever deployed resources which commuted daily on trains & tubes into geo-
based office hubs starting and finishing at a specific time (i.e. insanity22).
The next chapters are available in the full eBook version of Testing as a Service - Models that can be
downloaded from www.leanpub.com/taas which cover in detail the foundations for the Testing as a
Service (TaaS) model.
22 Albert Einstein, Ben Franklin and Mark Twain “Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results”, 1906-1955
3.
Furt
her
Read
ing
Check out Jonathon Wright’s webinar on
‘Testing as a Service’ – models and join the
discussion on www.TESTHuddle.com
Join the Discussion
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‘Testing as a Service’ – models from
www.leanpub.com/taas
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