The Met Office

With more than 1800 employees around the globe, the Met Office is among the world’s largest providers of weather-related services. In late 2009, as the company prepared to expand their web presence, Senior Tester Bob Doubell needed to find a sensible way to expand testing coverage within an agile framework.

“With an agile cycle, there isn't a lot of time to test,” said Doubell, who manages a small team of three in-house testers. “Since there's no predictable window, we needed a solution that could make our testing efforts more flexible. It used to be a tough nut to crack, but that's where uTest has helped the most.”

Although familiar with standard outsourcing procedures, Doubell was new to crowdsourcing, so while he was eager to see it in action, he was not without his doubts.

“We were skeptical, cautious and somewhat cynical about what crowdsourcing and uTest could offer,” he said. “But those feelings were eased after a few pilot test cycles.”

This case study will illustrate how the Met Office leveraged the uTest community to greatly expand its testing coverage ahead of several major launches. Along the way, we’ll cover the process of getting started; selecting testers; managing the uTest platform and more.

Getting Started: Defining Goals

Improving time-to-market is the number one reason why companies sign on as uTest customers – and the Met Office was no exception. With more than 30,000 testers from 165 countries around the world, uTest was able to provide Doubell with the expertise he needed, precisely when he needed it.

“With a typical outsourcing firm, you can have 50 contracted testers sitting around until it’s time for you to test,” said Doubell. “uTest has testers that are available 24/7, 365 days a year. Better yet, they’re available on practically no notice at all, which allows us to essentially compress 50 days of testing into a 24-hour period.”