World Quality Report Review

World Quality Report 2013 – 2014

CapGemini has released the 5th edition of their World Quality Report. Northway obtained a copy at the StarEast conference in Orlando. There are some interesting trends seen from the data gathered in this document.

The first observation is that the QA function continues to centralize. However, the actual number of companies that have a functional Testing Center of Excellence (TCoE) is a little over 25%. Although this number is up from previous years, it’s not really something to brag about. In our own anecdotal experience, we hear less and less about CoE’s and more about moving to Agile as an all-encompassing solution to QA. Some companies don’t recognize the value of the CoE or the effort it takes to maintain the high standards within them. Just as fast as a CoE can mature, it can backslide as easily as one upper manager turnover happens.

The report indicates companies are spending more on QA than before, but this may be (according to their research, not ours) because companies still continue to be reactive when it comes to testing and have QA involved later in the development cycle than they should. We’ve been teaching sound QA process in our training classes for years, emphasizing the need to test early and test often. As people move on from their roles in QA and are replaced, the next generation needs to understand these principles. Apparently we have a lot more people to train.

What’s Hot

Mobile testing has seen the biggest jump, with more than half of companies including some kind of mobile application testing. Functional and Performance testing are a given, but Security testing has made the biggest jump in activity. This makes sense. Mobile devices continue to drive the next wave of apps, and with security breaches a common occurrence in the news, it’s crucial companies take it seriously. The issue with security testing is that it is a specialty testing field, a niche much like performance testing. To do it right and reduce as much risk as possible, the testing has to be done by highly competent resources. We see a lack of good security application testers in the market today.

What’s Not

Cloud adoption and cloud-based testing is slightly slowing, but this may only be a temporary thing. The biggest concerns are around data and security. It still remains a big hurdle for the healthcare field where both are critical.  Whether cloud-based or in-house, the report found that managing test environments properly was another skill set lacking internally at most companies.

Agile

The report found that Agile is being widely adopted, but there are problems with how it’s being implemented. This is mainly due to the fact that many times the Agile process and methods are being adopted selectively. It assumes that roles can be exchanged easily (that developers make for testers, for example). We see this in our own anecdotal evidence working across multiple companies and industries. There does not tend to be a lot of consistency for something so widely embraced by IT.

Overall

This report is a very good look at IT quality and delves into each of the areas I have listed above and offers recommendations on what organizations can do to address each challenge. The report dives into a much more detailed view by sector, and much more. You can find a copy of the World Quality Report on Slideshare here.