How are all of us in QA doing? That is the question that the 2017 State of Testing, the largest worldwide online testing survey (over 1,600 respondents), sets out to answer. It is less about the industry, and more about us in the industry. Topics include the following (and I’m only sharing a small piece of the results in my comments):
- How long have we been in QA and how did we get here? In the past 2 year’s surveys, the number of “Under a year” testers responding jumped from 5% to 9% in the past year. Also, people who have been in QA a long time correlated strongly to people who “got into testing by accident” or “moved from another job in the company”.
- What are the sizes of our teams, and what side tasks do we have? In the past year, more of us see ourselves as “Software Engineers”, perhaps showing the role that automation plays.
- What approaches, methodologies, test documentation and testing activities do we participate in? If you feel like you’re hearing more about mind maps when talking about the SUT, mind map involvement has climbed up from 26% to 33% in the past year. Also, coordinated and coordinated beta testing jumps from 24% to 30%!
- How do we learn, and what skills do we have? Formal training is growing by leaps and bounds — it isn’t just reading books and picking it up on the side! And the most important skill is not functional automation & scripting (a close second). It’s – wait for it – communication skills! And my first lesson of communication skills is to avoid fillers like “wait for it.”
- What tools and development models do we use, and where does automation fit in? The percent of testers who introduced new testing tools into their practices in the past year: 56%. I’m still wondering how 13% of testers manage to not use bug tracking tools!
- What do we think the future of testing holds, and what are our related thoughts? These were answered in sentences, not dropdown-style. Some of the answers are listed.
The 2017 State of Testing Survey answers these questions, available as a free download at https://www.practitest.com/resource/state-of-testing-2017/, with a higher inclusion of “related thoughts” than in past years. Also, some trends are observed based on changes from previous years. In the end, you may find yourself thinking about your personal journey and the future of testing, as I did. If you want to go back a year in time, you can find the previous year’s survey results here.
The survey is sponsored by PractiTest, and additionally prepared by Tea-Time with Testers. QualiTest Group is one of many listed collaborators.
