Celebrating ten years of first-hand research, the Planit Testing Index continues to offer a comprehensive, unparalleled report of software testing. Research is carried out across project methodologies, budgets, business cases, activities, types, benefits, conditions, outcomes, strategies, trends and tools in Australia and New Zealand.

Our 2016 report analyses data gathered from 254 participants across a wide range of industries/ sectors including financial services (24%, down 2 percentage points), government (15%, down 3 points), software development (11%, up 1 point) and telecoms & ICT (11%, down 1 point). The majority of respondents held a leadership role in their organisation/projects (54%).

A quarter (25%) of respondents were representing small organisations of less than 100 staff, with 36% mid-market representatives in the 100–2,000 space, and the remaining 39% belonging to large organisations with headcounts surpassing 2,000 employees. These respondents represent 12,199 total projects; 9,828 from Australia and 2,371 from New Zealand.

Improved project success

38% of projects are reported to be completed optimally in 2016, delivered on time, budget and scope. This is one percentage point higher than 2015 (37%), and this figure has fluctuated significantly from 2007 to the present, hitting a low of 33% in 2008 and peaking at 52% in 2013.

Victoria continues to out-perform the 2016 average by 10 percentage points, with a significantly higher number of projects completed on time, within budget and scope at 48%. This is 8 percentage points higher than NSW (40%) and a significant 29 percentage points higher than QLD (19%) and WA (19%).

Among the regions represented in this study, QLD reported the highest number of projects completed over time and over budget at 43%, 20% higher than the 2016 average. As with 2015, project postponements and cancellations remain at a combined 15% in 2016, continuing to remain at the highest level on record.

Leading with Agile

The vast majority of organisations (94%, up 6 points) are now utilising Agile in some portion of their projects as a means to accelerate delivery. Nonetheless, its prominence continues to grow with Agile achieving a majority share of all projects undertaken in 2016 at 55%, up 12 percentage points since 2015 and doubling in adoption since 2011 (28%).

6,734 of respondent projects utilised Agile in 2016, in comparison to 5,002 following traditional methods of Waterfall and V-Model. The prevalence of Agile is even higher in New Zealand at 66% in comparison to Australia at 53%, a 13 percentage point difference.

When examining sectors, Agile is most utilised by software industry respondents at 73%, 18 percentage points higher than the 2016 average. The sector with the lowest Agile adoption, government, is also the area demonstrating the most significant growth, up 18 percentage points from 27% last year to 45% in 2016.

To read the full 2016 report, please visit the Planit Testing Index page.