Testing Has its Own Budget, Finally

Testing today is getting a larger slice of the IT budget pie

Over the last few years Quality Assurance (QA) has shifted from being tactical to strategic. In the ‘80s / early ‘90s, during the emerging phase of QA, enterprises had a tactical view of QA and an approach that was ad hoc and lacked any defined processes. As the industry continued maturing in the transitioning stage, during the late ‘90s/ early ‘00s there was increased acceptance of QA value propositions, most companies had or at least tried having dedicated test teams and started using some kind of test processes.  This phase was lead by several banks and telecom services providers who were among the first to realize that they needed to conduct testing separately.

Then came the transformative or the advanced phase that we are witness to today and is the calling of the future. A chapter that started unfolding in the late ‘00s and will continue to profoundly influence the future of IT services. The tactical to strategic shift in QA - establishment of QA Centers of Excellence and use of advanced metrics for ongoing improvement highlight this phase. This phase is also characterized by organizations trying to abate the pain of testing and putting responsibility on testing vendors by awarding managed testing service contracts.
 
Before the advent of the strategic outlook to testing it was typically constrained by lack of budgets, time and resources. Now there is a visible shift and in most enterprises testing has a budget of its own. Software testing spending is at €79bn in 2010 and the figure is to climb to €100bn by 2014 (PAC). Today testing clearly gets a larger slice of the IT budget pie. Testing can comprise as much as 33% of the labor hours of a typical application life cycle with sometimes the needle moving to as much as 50%.