Shift Left Testing – Software testing

Shift Left Testing, as the name suggests, is a methodology or an approach that came to be tested earlier in the development process. It mainly focuses on including or involving testers almost in all essential and critical stages of the program. Its main goal is to improve quality by shifting tasks to the left as early as possible in the lifecycle. Rather than dealing with every bug or defect and critical issue post-development, the shift left focuses on preventing defects and reducing risks.

By preventing defects, it also encourages the use of BDD (Behavior Driven Development) and TDD (Test Driven Development). It also supports and encourages the testing team to team up and collaborate with all stakeholders early in the software development process. In the early software development life cycle, testing takes place at the end-of-life cycle. So, it became more difficult and expensive to fix defects that were found later in the development process. But with shift-left testing, defects are found earlier in the development process which makes it easy and less expensive to fix them. So, it is important to get started with a shift-left approach to avoid expensive mistakes.

Traditional Model

Shift Left Model

Steps to get started with Shift Left

Steps 1. Plan Testing Lifecycle.

Panning is a very essential management technique. It is very essential, both personally and professionally. Testing is considered a key part of any project or software plan and valuable phase in the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) where all testing strategies are defined. One has to plan to test in the software development life cycle as it is the first step towards the testing process. Test planning includes budget, resources, testing strategies, team requirements, etc. It is an integral part of the shift-left approach and generally provides a starting point for all different activities in test lifecycle. It also improves reliability, performance, better understanding, etc.

Steps 2. Encourage Testers to Code.

Coding has become the most essential part of knowledge nowadays. It not only enhances creativity but also enhances solving skills. Shift left testing mostly requires good knowledge of coding. Therefore, testers should have good knowledge of programming skills and database. It is one of the most important skills that a tester should have and if not, then they should try to develop it. It reduces time as one can review code much faster and also ensures a higher quality of code. If the development team has good knowledge of coding, then they can easily maintain it, can reduce bugs, develop less complex software programs. This is because they can understand it and modify it at any point in time. One can remove the root cause of error or defects if they have good knowledge of code.

Steps 3. Implement Testing at an early stage.

One needs to implement testing at an early stage of the development life cycle. Agile methodology is considered best for implementing testing at an early stage of the life cycle. This method includes testing as an integral part of the development lifecycle. So, it is best to adopt an agile methodology. This approach simply means that testers or developers with different skills are involved in the testing process or cycle earlier than ever before. It involves creating applications in small increments and each individual increment is tested before it is considered complete. These small code increments are also called sprints.

Steps 4. Accept Test Automation.

Test automation is considered both present and future of software testing at present DevOps driven landscape. Automating test simply means a technique used to test and compare actual outcomes with expected outcomes. It runs test automatically, manage test data and improve software quality. Shift left testing should give greater ability to automate testing. So, developers need to embrace test automation tools selenium, Telerik test studio, SoapUI, etc. Automation testing provides various benefits such reduce human errors, reduce pressure on testing team, improves accuracy and save time, provide faster feedback about the stability of code, etc. It simply speeds up the development process and allows for faster time to market.

Steps 5. Audit and Inspect.

Audit and inspection, both are vital for maximizing value to an organization. They both give an opportunity to correct any issues before it results in significant problems in product and development phase. It is very important for the success of shift left the testing program as it reduces chances of major defects or errors and makes sure that the entire application is free of errors or existing bugs.

Importance of Shift Left Testing

1. A Rise in Automation: Automation is essential to shift-left testing because it makes it possible to run tests quickly in the early phases of development. Quick feedback on code changes can be obtained by integrating automated tests into the continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipeline.
2. Culture of Testing Has Altered: Shift-left testing encourages a change in mindset so that testing is viewed as an essential component of the whole development process rather than as a distinct and isolated stage. This shift in culture promotes a quality assurance and continuous testing approach.
3. Enhanced Cooperation: The development and testing teams should work together from the beginning when using shift-left testing. Better communication and teamwork are the results of this collaboration, which helps to establish a shared understanding of requirements, design and testing procedures.
4. Improved Handling of Risk: Risk management can be enhanced by recognizing and addressing possible risks early in the development process. By being proactive, risks are reduced before they have an adverse effect on the project’s timeline or the quality of the final result.
5. Early Defect Identification: Testing can be done at an earlier stage of development, when problems and faults are easier to find and address and can be fixed more quickly and easily.

Conclusion

Shift-left testing is an evolution in how companies approach software development, not just an adjustment in procedure. Through early integration of testing, organizations can deliver software more quickly and efficiently, while lowering the possibility of faults affecting the final product. Adopting shift-left testing is a strategic necessity in the endeavor to achieve effective and long-lasting software development, not just a best practice.