The Endava Executive Network Perspective shares the views and opinions on the core testing as a result of the Endava Executive Network event in London, June 2015. The main topic of discussion was around whether testing is a commodity. ..................................................... Endava hosted an evening networking event – first of a series of Endava Executive Network programme. The evening was introduced by Endava’s CTO, Eoin Woods, and commenced with a discussion, facilitated by Endava’s Head of Testing, Mark Firth. The event was attended by senior IT managers from banking, payments and insurance companies.

1. QUALITY. PRODUCTIVITY. INNOVATION. endava.com
Is Testing a Commodity?
Endava Executive Network
London, 23 June 2015
Testing is a critical activity for modern software delivery organisations but the
approach used varies widely and there is little agreement as to what
constitutes effective practice. The key question for many people is not
whether testing is a commodity but whether there are parts of testing which
can be safely treated as a commodity service?
On Tuesday the 23rd June, Endava hosted an evening networking event – first
of a series of Endava Executive Network programme. The evening was
introduced by Endava’s CTO, Eoin Woods, and commenced with a discussion,
facilitated by Endava’s Head of Testing, Mark Firth. The event was attended by
senior IT managers from banking, payments and insurance companies.

2. QUALITY. PRODUCTIVITY. INNOVATION. endava.com
A topic for debate
The term commodity is specifically used for an economic good or service when the demand
for it has no qualitative differentiation across a market.
The opinion of our event’s attendees on whether testing can be commoditised was that the
majority of testing is an expert activity, similar to software development, and requires a
blend of technical, domain, people and process skills. A couple of areas where it may be
possible to commoditise testing were thought to be some aspects of mobile and cross
browser testing.
The key to commoditising a service is to apply a consistent measurement for the delivery of
that service. However with a highly complex activity such as software testing there is no
universally recognised standard and most of the attendees reported that the quality of the
testing services they consumed was based on perception. Also when buying a commodity
you pay for the good or service rather than the people who provide that good or service and
within this group the vast majority of testing was paid for through the provision of teams
rather than services.
Views and opinions
on the core testing skills and trends
Domain expertise
There was split opinion on the importance
of domain expertise required to conduct
effective testing. While it is generally
regarded as vital to have some domain
expertise to test complex applications,
some of the attendees believe that the
reliance on domain experts testing
manually could be reduced by automating
some of the tests, while others said that
their testers had worked on the systems
for several years and they did not have
the time or budget to invest in
automation.
Agile and test automation
Two of the companies in attendance have
mature agile development approaches
with high levels of test automation during
the development sprints. The view of the
Head of Testing of one of these
companies is that organisations will have
to fully automate testing in the future in
order to survive and in order to achieve
that, testers need skills more closely
related to software developers than
traditional manual testers.

3. QUALITY. PRODUCTIVITY. INNOVATION. endava.com
Key takeaways
The overwhelming conclusion from this
group of testing experts was it was
difficult to commoditise most testing
activity and even if it is possible, it is rarely
possible to do so without destroying much
of the value of the testing. Opinion in the
group was more varied on the subjects of
domain knowledge and automation. Some
attendees rely on manual testing by
domain experts, while others feel that
there are other ways of addressing the
challenge – notably though automation.
On the subject of automation, there were
again a range of views, from those who
are aiming to automate almost all testing,
to those who feel that for their systems
such an investment could never be
justified.
We plan to run more testing themed
events in the near future to continue to
build this community of testing expertise
to share ideas and practice in a neutral
environment.
Thank you
We would like to thank to our speakers, Eoin Woods, CTO Endava, and Mark Firth, Head of
Testing Endava, and to all those who came to the session for all their inputs on the topic
and the sparkling conversations generated during the event.
To continue any of these conversations, feel free to get in touch with us at:
TestingServices@endava.com.
About Endava
Endava is a leading IT Services organisation with over 2,250 full time employees.
Headquartered in London, Endava has offices in the UK, USA, Germany, Romania, Moldova,
Macedonia and Serbia, and reported revenues of £64 m for the financial year 2013 -2014.
Supporting the full software lifecycle, Endava covers application development and
management, testing, digital media, infrastructure management and cloud services.
Industry-focused verticals are led by professionals who speak the customers’ language,
designing services for clients, complemented by world class delivery. Endava’s solutions
transform systems, platforms and processes for the world’s leading brands in Capital
Markets, Banking, Payments, Insurance, Media, Retail and Telecommunications.