Study proves: More and more companies rely on tests

In companies, tests are used worldwide to ensure quality, help planning budgets and better coordinate training. Especially in agile environments, tests play an increasingly important role, but automation is also becoming more and more important. This is also shown by the recently published Worldwide Software Testing Practises Report.

Companies recognize testing as necessary

The report surveyed companies from 89 countries. Most companies – about 70% – spend between 11% and 40% of their IT development budget on software testing. The trend is rising, and the share is expected to increase in the coming years. The training of testers is also progressing: almost half of the companies provide funds for courses and certification, a third even for both. However, training continues to be provided on the job, with the emphasis on both theoretical knowledge and practical implementation. One example is test design and the use of in-house test tools. Softskills such as communication skills and the ability to work in a team are becoming increasingly important.

New tasks for companies

The development of software is largely done with agile frameworks. The most important ones are Scrum, Kanban and Extreme Programming. Meanwhile 70 percent of companies use such models, but the share of classic waterfall projects is still 53 percent. Test automation is used in both cases. About 72 percent of the companies stated to use test automation, 40 percent use automation in more than 20 percent of all applications. In this context, companies also demand better and practice-oriented test tools.

Rarely implemented are risk-based test strategies. However, this still has the consequence that tests are aborted after a certain point in time. This is still one of the two biggest risks, only the requirement coverage is even more risky. The good news is that non-functional applications are also increasingly being tested. Performance plays a major role: Almost two thirds of them consider it the most important criterion for non-functional tests, about half of them specify usability tests, and only in third place is the security of the data.

How can Automated Software Testing help?

The trends reflect quite well our consulting portfolio and our range of seminars. Here, agile requirements engineering, testing and support for test automation, specialized courses for agile requirements management and testing in agile projects as well as test automation are on the agenda. If you use the right tools, you can reduce the strain on your budget, especially if you have experienced partners like the Automated Software Testing team. We can help with implementation, training and customization and thus significantly improve processes.

Conclusion

The trends listed in the study mentioned above clearly show that software testing is playing an increasingly important role both in perception and in practice. There are more agile projects, automation is increasing and non-functional tests are also being used more and more. There is still some catching up to do when it comes to estimating test duration and which tools can be used to further optimize test automation.