Fully Flexible Off-Site Agile Testing

The client was looking to increase the size and depth of its flagship eCommerce trading platform, whilst also preparing for a period of strategic transformational change. A programme was underway to transform the SDLC from traditional waterfall/ITIL to an Agile delivery model with continuous delivery. Ten10 was engaged to provide a fully flexible managed functional test service during the client’s transformational change.

The client faced a number of challenges as they looked to hire an internal team based in their central London office. The fast-moving nature of the business resulted in an ongoing need to adjust the size of the test team in very short time frames. A permanent onsite team would have restricted the flexibility needed to scale-up and scale-down the size of the test team in response to the high-profile project’s changing requirements.

During previous recruitment drives the client had found it difficult to source high-quality testers with the necessary blend of technology and capital markets expertise. People with this experience were in short supply and very expensive Once hired, they often found that these testers were hard to retain given the competitive market within the City of London.

Another consideration for the client was the shortage of space in their central London office. The associated high cost made it hard to justify building an internal test team when space could be better allocated to revenue generating trading desks.

Ten10 has been providing a fully managed test service for the client’s leading eCommerce trading platform for a number of years.

Ten10 was able to meet the client’s demand for a multi-skilled team with experience of capital markets, providing eight consultants in total; one Managing Principal, one Lead Test Consultant, two Test Consultants and four Graduate Analysts. The initial test team was permanently based out of Ten10’s Leeds office, providing all the efficiencies of an off-site team, but with the important advantage of the team being in the same time zone.

The engagement was led by the Ten10 Managing Principal with the day-to-day management of the team run by the Lead Test Consultant. This approach not only gave the client a consistent point of contact but with the added benefit that as the consultants were located less than 3 hours away, they were able to attend the monthly account management meetings in person, held on-site every month.

Following the success of this initial engagement, the team expanded to 13 consultants working across four permanent projects and other business as usual work.