Well over 200 respondents participated in the 2011 Index, representing over 9100 IT projects from across Australia and New Zealand, up from 5400 in 2010.

For more details, follow the links provided below.

If you would like further information about the Planit Index, email index@planit.net.au.

Contact Planit on 1300 992 967 for more information about our services. Find out how we can help you assure quality in your projects.

“Content is very relevant and meaningful.”

“A great guide to where the industry is at.”

“Excellent insights into industry trends.”

• The results of the 2011 Planit Testing Index
• The features and benefits of HP ALM 11
• What’s new in Performance Testing with HP ALM 11
• Minimising business risk with Security Testing

12:00pm til 02:00pm, Tuesday 22 November 2011
Origins Restaurant, Pan Pacific Hotel, 207 Adelaide Terrace, Perth WA

Roadshow Agenda

Registrations are now closed. Thank you for your interest.

Software Testing: how does your organisation compare?

Now in its fifth year, the Planit Testing Index is the leading report into the state of software development projects in Australia and New Zealand.

At the Planit Index Seminar Series, you will hear about the current state of your industry. Have priorities and perceptions shifted? Where is the industry heading in 2012?

Benchmark your projects against well over 200 participants from across Australia and New Zealand.

Learn about industry trends in: Project budgets, allocations and outcomes Methodologies used and their level of success Adoption of performance testing and test automation Project outlooks and job prospects for 2012

Featured Presenter: Chris Carter, Managing Director, Planit

Chris is the founder of Planit and a respected figure in software testing internationally and has been a major driver in advancing the Australian testing industry. Chris was the founding Chairman of the ANZTB and is currently the ISTQB Vice President.

Seminar Dates & Times

SYDNEY – 12:00pm til 02:00pm, Tuesday 15 November 2011
The Grace Hotel, 77 York Street, Sydney NSW

CANBERRA – 12:00pm til 02:00pm, Wednesday 16 November 2011
The Crowne Plaza, 1 Binara Street, Canberra ACT

MELBOURNE – 12:00pm til 02:00pm, Thursday 17 November 2011
The Novotel on Collins, 270 Collins Street, Melbourne VIC

PERTH* – 12:00pm til 02:00pm, Tuesday 22 November 2011
The Pan Pacific Hotel, 207 Adelaide Terrace, Perth WA

WELLINGTON – 12:00pm til 02:00pm, Wednesday 07 December 2011
The Intercontinental, 2 Grey Street, Wellington NZ

AUCKLAND – 12:00pm til 02:00pm, Thursday 08 December 2011
The Crowne Plaza, 128 Albert Street, Auckland NZ

* The Perth seminar will take a different format to the other Index events, with additional speaking sessions including HP ALM 11 and Security Testing. Click here for details.

Registrations are now closed. Thank you for your interest.

For five years, your input has allowed us to supply valuable information back to the industry, providing a benchmark for projects.

All participants that complete the survey will receive:

• A copy of the Index report which provides a detailed summary of the results.
• A complimentary pass to the Index seminar luncheon, where the results will be discussed.
• $20 donation to a nominated charity.
• $200 training voucher for your next course with Planit.

Questions specific to your job role
For the first time this year the questionnaire features different paths that cater to the specific roles of respondents:

• Test Managers
• Test Practitioners
• Business Analysts
• Programmers / Developers
• Project Managers
• IT Executives

We invite you to participate in the 2011 Planit Index. The questionnaire should take you around 10 minutes to complete.

The 2011 Index Survey is now closed. Thank you for your interest.

In the recent 2010 Planit Testing Index, surveying over 200 organisations, 26% of the industry indicated that they have now moved beyond pre-GFC activity levels.

According to Planit Managing Director, Chris Carter, this positive outlook also carries through to spending for software testing in 2011. “49% are going to be spending an increased amount of money on structured testing methodologies, which is encouraging to see,” said Carter. “We’re also seeing an increase in spend in Software Testing tools and also an increase in spend in training permanent staff.

“On the downside of things, the number one area where spending will reduce will be offshoring. Interestingly, offshoring has grown over the past few years, but more organisations are looking to decrease offshoring in 2011 compared with last year.”

But in spite of the general optimism and intentions to continue spending more on testing, project outcomes worsened over the past year, with only 42% of projects being delivered on time, on budget and in line with their original scope, compared with 49% in 2009.

The predominant reason for this outcome is the continued burden of poor and changing project requirements, a key result of the Planit Testing Index over the past four years. In fact, 96% of respondents said that better requirements engineering would have a positive impact on project outcomes, with 63% indicating that this impact would be significant.

Another interesting outcome from the 2010 Planit Testing Index was the immense swing towards Agile/RAD methodologies, with 48% of respondents indicating that they commonly use these in software development projects.

Despite their rapid rise in acceptance, Agile/RAD users were only slightly more likely to report a favourable outcome as compare with those that used no defined corporate methodology at all. This result could be at least partially attributed to the relative immaturity in the way these methodologies are being implemented, rather than being any fault of the methodologies themselves.

In summing up the year’s findings, Carter emphasised the large amount of room for improvement stating that outcomes “could be so much better if only we got requirements definition right”. Time will tell if the industry’s good intentions to improve testing processes will translate into action and positive project outcomes.

Download the Press Release

The 2010 Planit Testing Index received a record level of responses, with over 200 organisations participating in this industry-wide survey.

The results of the 2010 Index were presented in a road-show of seminars across Australia and New Zealand, delivered by Chris Carter, Founder and Managing Director of Planit. Chris is the region’s foremost expert in Software Testing, as well as board member of the ISTQB internationally and ANZTB (the local subsidiary).

The videos below provide an overview of some of the key findings from the 2010 Planit Testing Index, presented by Chris Carter.

According to Planit Sofware Testing’s annual Software Testing Index, only 42 percent of software projects started in the past two years were delivered on time, on budget, and in line with their original scope. This result was a decline from 2009 when 49 percent of projects were reported as being delivered optimally. The Index found that projects were more likely to run over time, cost more than was estimated, or experience changes to more than 25 percent of their original scope.

Planit managing director Chris Carter said the major causes of these problems were poor definition and gathering of project requirements.

“We seem to have this inability to firstly to define what the requirements are adequately, and when we have defined them, to actually stick with them,” Carter said. “And we are not very good at project estimation from a budget and a time perspective. And we don’t set realistic expectations – we are almost setting ourselves up to fail.”

Not surprisingly then 64 percent of respondents said that improving requirements gathering would make a significant positive impact on project outcomes.

When a project came under pressure respondents nominated that they were more likely to extend the deadline or even increase the budget rather than reduce their focus on quality processes such as testing. Only 1 percent of projects were reported as failing entirely.

Now in its fourth year, the Planit Software Testing Index gathered responses from 235 individuals with roles related to software testing in organisations across Australian and New Zealand, with strong representation from the Software/IT, Financial Services, Government and Telecommunications sectors. Other findings included a significant rise in the number of organisations that use Agile software development methodologies, which overtook the more traditional Waterfall model of sequential software development process. Almost half of all organisations now use Agile, although often in parallel with more traditional methodologies.

The Index also found that despite the role that testing can play in improving software project outcomes, attitudes towards software testing declined in many organisations. The number of respondents that rated it as a critical element in producing reliable software fell from 56 percent in 2009 to 45 percent now.

“A further 22 percent of our respondents consider software testing to be strategically important to a project’s success,” Carter says. “But we now have 19 percent of our respondents who are saying that testing is a necessary evil, and we also have a large number of respondents who are thinking that testing is either a cost to be minimised or not a major priority in their organisation.”

Carter said he was pleased however to see that two thirds of respondents were business-focused when it came to making their business case for software testing, with 40 percent nominating that it leads to enhanced customer satisfaction and builds customer loyalty.

On average, testing accounted for 19 percent of project budgets, behind only the actual development phase in terms of budget allocation.

“With 19 percent of the budget you should be able to deliver a quality product,” Carter said. “The justifications for a reasonable budget for software testing to deliver quality are well presented and appear to be reasonable well received by executive management.”

He also said respondents’ description of project conditions was generally positive, making the negative project outcomes even more puzzling.

“One would have expected with the project conditions being reported that the project outcomes would have been fairly positive, but we’ve found that in 2010 the project outcomes have been worse than 2009,” he said.

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Is software testing a necessary evil in the development and deployment of software projects for Australian and New Zealand IT departments, or an essential tool in reducing budget overruns and quality nightmares?

The creators of the Planit Software Testing Index are calling on software developers and testers to help answer these and other questions with the launch of the 2010 edition of the Index today.

Designed for software testers, developers and related professionals, this year’s survey seeks to shed light on the role that testing plays in software development and its contribution to successful project outcomes.

Planit managing director Chris Carter said the Index matched Planit’s mission to improve the delivery of IT programs and projects in Australia and New Zealand.

“And we want to do that by focusing on how we can improve software testing within projects and programs,” Carter said.

He hoped that this year’s responses would show a continuation of the trend towards software testing being seen as an important component of the development process. In the 2007 Index 26 percent of respondents reported that software testing was a necessary evil, but that figure had dropped to 12 percent in 2009. Those respondents who reported that it was strategically important for the organisation’s success grew from 13 percent to 23 percent over the same period.

“People were starting to use project testing as a means of controlling their project costs and controlling their output, rather than just something that was tacked on at the end,” Carter said. “So I think that will be a trend that will continue with people getting more and more serious about it.”

The Index gives participants an opportunity to benchmark themselves against their peers in the region and across vertical industry segments, in terms of when they apply testing, the resources allocated and the methodologies used.

This year’s Index also seeks to shed light on whether the resources and time of commencement of software testing has a significant impact on project quality, and asks what the usual impediments are to earlier or more extensive testing. Carter said the goal of these questions was to provide those responsible for software testing with a stronger set of quantified data to benchmark themselves against and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their testing efforts.

Devin said the survey also hoped to uncover whether software development activity had bounced back after the slowdown that occurred during the global financial crisis. Last year’s Index saw the majority of respondents (31.4 percent) state that the financial crisis had had no impact on the way projects were executed, although 26.3 percent stated that projects underwent more rigorous evaluation, while 26.3 percent said that resources were reduced.

“Projects have ramped up again and I think it will be interesting to see if the lessons learnt during the GFC with regards to IT spending will continue to be applied,” Carter said.

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