What is shift-left and why is it important?

The goal of the Shift Left methodology is to detect and eliminate bugs before they are even delivered in the form of software. The goal is to increase quality by starting work on the left side of the process earlier in the lifetime. When it comes to software development, “Shift Left” refers to testing at an earlier stage.

Why is Shift Left used?

In the conventional approach to software development, requirements are stored on the left side of the schedule, while delivery and testing criteria are retained on the right. The issue is that these procedures can’t adapt to ever-evolving customer needs, which leads to consequences for the company like

  • Costs Have Gone Up
  • Longer product launch times
  • Imprecise results

To reduce expenses, you should move your testing to the left. It is estimated that less than 10% of software flaws will appear during the development phase of the lifecycle, while over half will be found during the requirements phase. The expense of fixing these flaws is a regressive one:

Instead of waiting until late in the software development life cycle (SDLC) to fix flaws and defects, the Shift left methodology encourages teams to do so from the very beginning. As a result of moving to the left, product teams can do things like:

  • Testing
  • Analyzing Developments and Alterations
  • Offering Responses

What makes Shift Left an appropriate option

Real-world performance and functionality may not always be maximized by a Shift Left testing strategy. The Shift Right testing technique could be useful in these cases since it can:

  • Improve the quality of the interaction with the consumer
  • Make room for automated testing to be used
  • Expand your test coverage to ensure greater quality
  • When you press Shift + Right, you’ll jump into post-production testing. This Shift Right exercise will have you verify the performance and usability of a fully developed and operational application. Review and input from intended end-users also aid in making the software better.

A key component of the Shift Right mindset is a readiness to:

  • Test a theory by employing other approaches.
  • To find out what is successful, it’s best to work together with customers (instead of working from assumptions)
  • The ability to react more effectively to software problems may be aided by continuous feedback from users.

Benefits of utilizing shift-left 

Taking a tilt to the left has several positive outcomes. Several of the most crucial are as follows:

  • Changing to the left allows for more efficient automated testing.
  • Being a prompter implies getting anywhere sooner. In addition to speeding up the repair process, locating flaws earlier in the manufacturing cycle allows you to do so in the first place.
  • One of the main advantages of the shift-left method is that it allows for the quicker delivery of software with fewer bugs.
  • The happiness on the faces of your business partners should be enough to convince you that this is the right choice.

How to adopt a shift-left approach

If you want to move to the left in software testing, there are a few crucial methods to keep in mind.

The Demand Planning Process

Analysts in charge of performing tests will interact with business and operational personnel to provide a look into the future of demand.

Observational tests

It is common practice to perform static testing at the beginning phases of a project to ensure that the requirements and design are correct.

A common approach to testing

Unit testing, user acceptability testing, operational readiness testing, and post-deployment testing are all included in this comprehensive, high-level approach to testing.

Analyzing risks

Each potential failure scenario is subjected to a risk-based analysis to ascertain its potential consequences. In this method, we can test the functionality, non-functionality, and regression of a system.



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