Testers get more agile

Despite the recession, 71 percent of organisations are still investing in software and while quality is still high priority, financial constraints have meant that companies are having to make do with much smaller workforces; half of the survey respondents said that resource cuts had forced their teams to take on more work.

That's according to 2010-2011 World Quality Report, a survey jointly run by the Capgemini Group and Soget, who asked a whopping 32,000 CIOs, IT directors and quality assurance managers about their current experiences of software quality.

Most companies are now following a set application lifecycle methodology (ALM) with 70 percent of companies claiming to follow guidelines. There's a new rigour in testing, said Brian Shea, the CEO of Sogeti UK, " A few years ago, testers would adopt a 'let's see what this feels like' methodology. Today is very different: people use metrics, use a code database3. We don't rely on what we feel but we can pull stats out and examine them," he said. "There are set figures to compare. For example, if it's a PoS project for a retailer than we can call on stats from similar projects in 30 different countries to compare the results."

There's a change in focus on testing, with many more organisations experimenting with agile testing methodology compared to the waterfall method of old. "Agile has found its place," said Shea. "It's not used everywhere yet but it’s used in places where companies have to get products to markets quickly."