The year is far from over, but there already several interesting DevTest surveys worth your attention. These studies don’t just quantify the obvious; they actually report some unexpected findings regarding how far and how fast we’re advancing, and offer some very specific advice on what’s needed to improve.
We strongly recommend that you spend some time reading all three of these surveys in their entirety. However, in case you’re short on time (or impatient … or both), we wanted to highlight the findings that are most pertinent for readers practicing or researching Continuous Testing.
Sauce Labs – Testing Trends for 2018: A Survey of Development and Testing Professionals
2018 marks the fourth annual “Testing Trends” report, which is based on a global survey of more than 1,000 technology professionals responsible for developing and testing web and mobile applications.
Key findings in terms of testing include:
- 87 percent report that management supports test automation initiatives.
- 45 percent expect to increase spending on test automation in 2018 (55 percent at large companies).
- The number of respondents with high levels of test automation dropped to 28 percent in 2018 from 32 percent in 2017 .
- The release cadence is actually slowing, with hourly deployments dropping to 5 percent from 14 percent and daily deployments dropping to 27 percent from 34 percent.
In other words, everyone recognizes the value of test automation and most companies are willing to invest in it. However, test automation rates are actually decreasing, while Agile and DevOps adoption are steadily increasing. In the 2017 report, test automation rates increased slightly, and delivery speed also increased slightly. The 2018 reported a similar correlation: Test automation rates decreased, and the release cadence slowed down.
GitLab – 2018 Global Developer Report
This expansive survey polled 5,296 software professionals from around the world. The majority of respondents were software developers or engineers who worked for small- to medium-sized businesses (SMB) in the hardware, services and SaaS industries.
Testing wasn’t a common topic in this development-focused research, but it did earn a prominent spot in the report. Testing was the No. 1 response to the question, “Where in the development process do you encounter the most delays?” A dubious honor—but not a surprising one. Last year’s DevOps Review polled an entirely different audience and came up with the exact same finding.
VersionOne – 12th Annual State of Agile Report
The 12th edition of the world’s longest-running Agile study found that while 97 percent of the 1,492 respondents’ organizations are practicing Agile, 84 percent report that their Agile adoption is not yet mature.
Respondents feel strongly that two testing-related items would help them increase process maturity across both Agile and DevOps:
- 83 percent want end-to-end traceability from business initiative through development, test and deployment.
- 82 percent want better identification and measurement of risk prior to deployment.
Respondents also reported a relatively high level of adoption of development testing and “shift left” testing techniques. Adoption levels were reported at:
- Unit testing – 75 percent.
- Coding standards – 64 percent.
- Pair programming – 36 percent.
- TDD – 35 percent.
- BDD – 17 percent.
Testers might also be interested in the survey’s feedback on Agile management tools. Usage rates were reported at:
- Atlassian Jira – 58 percent.
- VersionOne – 20 percent.
- Microsoft TFS – 21 percent.
- HP (now Micro Focus) Quality Center / ALM – 14 percent.
The most highly recommended tools were VersionOne, Jira and CA Agile Central. HP Agile Manager, Hansoft and HP Quality Center /ALM were the least likely to be recommended.