As the demand to release quality software products in a short amount of time continues to accelerate, Agile and DevOps teams have to adopt new approaches to avoid falling behind.
Shift left testing is the breakthrough solutions for them. In this blog, we will walk you through those concepts, their benefits, and how to implement them into your software development life cycle (SDLC).
Shift-left testing is a software testing approach that shifts all testing activities to earlier development stages rather than leaving until the very final stages. This is a proactive testing approach based on the idea that the earlier defects are identified and resolved, the lower the cost and effort required for fixing them.
Shift Left Testing emerged as a response to the inefficiencies and high costs of traditional software testing, where testing was often done late in the development lifecycle.
In the past, testing was separated from development. The software was only be tested once it’s fully developed. As a result, testers don’t have enough time to test. If a bug is found, developers have to allocate a large part of their bandwidth to troubleshoot new bugs.
Thus, shift-left testing was born.
The idea of it is to simultaneously develop and test. This creates a continuous feedback loop throughout the entire development process. If a bug is found, it is also addressed immediately instead of getting entrenched in the code.
Testing begins at the requirement and design phase, not just after development.
With shift-left testing, testers, developers, and stakeholders collaborate early to prevent defects rather than just detecting them. A test-first approach, such as test-driven development (TDD) and behavior-driven development (BDD), helps ensure quality from the start.
Read More: TDD vs BDD: What Are The Differences?
Automating tests early allows frequent and reliable validation. Tools like Selenium, Katalon, and Cypress help execute tests continuously in CI/CD pipelines. Automated unit, API, and integration tests catch issues before they escalate, making early defect detection more efficient.
Read More: What is Automation Testing? How To Automate Tests Effectively?
Static code analysis tools like SonarQube, ESLint, and Checkstyle help developers catch issues before runtime. This reduces technical debt, improves code quality, and saves time and costs compared to late-stage debugging.
Effective communication between developers, testers, and business teams is essential. Aligning early on testing goals, tools, and strategies creates a shared responsibility for quality. This ensures testing is an integral part of development rather than an afterthought.
A structured transition plan helps both QA and development teams understand the changes shift left testing introduces. Since testing becomes a shared responsibility, existing workflows and structures need to be adjusted to support closer collaboration between teams.
Testing is no longer a separate, sequential phase but an ongoing process integrated into development. Teams must establish continuous communication and feedback loops to align testing efforts with development from the start.
Project managers must adapt their processes to incorporate shift left testing and align it with DevOps best practices. Beyond managing workflows, they play a key role in fostering a quality-first culture and ensuring the transition is smooth from both a technical and organizational perspective.
Automation is essential in shift left testing, but many QA teams lack expertise in automated testing. Writing and maintaining test scripts requires programming skills, and as software evolves, keeping these scripts updated can be resource-intensive, especially at scale.
Developers may resist additional testing responsibilities, but testability is simply an extension of good coding practices. Testers can support developers by guiding them in writing clean, maintainable, and testable code, which leads to a smoother testing process.
Limited interaction between QA and development teams has traditionally led to misalignment and inefficiencies. Tools like JIRA can help bridge the gap, but since they aren’t specifically designed for testing, additional integrations may be needed to create a more tester-friendly system.
1. Why does DevOps recommend shift-left testing principles?
DevOps recommends shift-left testing principles to ensure that testing is integrated into the software development process as early as possible, which helps to detect and fix bugs and issues earlier, reducing the risk of defects being found later in the development process or in production. This results in faster delivery of high-quality software and helps to increase customer satisfaction.
Read More: DevOps Lifecycle Fully Explained
2. Is shift left testing possible in automation and performance testing?
Yes, shift-left testing is possible in automation and performance testing. Shift left testing is simply a methodology to testing where you bring any type of testing to the earlier stages, so you can literally perform any type of testing with it.
3. Is shift left and test driven development the same?
Shift-left testing and test-driven development (TDD) are indeed related concepts, but they are not the same thing. Shift-left testing is a testing methodology that involves testing early in the software development lifecycle, whereas TDD is a programming methodology that involves writing tests before writing the code. TDD can be part of a shift-left testing approach, but it is just one piece of the puzzle.
4. Who started shift left testing?
The concept of shift left testing originated from the software testing community, although it is difficult to pinpoint a specific individual or group that started it. However, several sources indicate that Larry Smith was the first to coin the term, who back in 2001 explained his concept of “shift-left testing” and how he envisioned it as a pragmatic solution to “integrate QA and development parts of a software project”.
Continuous testing runs tests frequently throughout development, ensuring faster bug detection and higher release quality. It creates a constant feedback loop, allowing developers to fix issues early before production.
A key part of Shift-Left Testing, continuous testing helps catch defects sooner, reducing costly fixes later. It heavily relies on automation, especially in large projects, to streamline iterative testing.
Have a look at this table to understand the differences in 2 approaches:
|
Aspect |
Shift-left Testing |
Continuous Testing |
|
Definition |
Testing activities are moved earlier in the software development lifecycle (SDLC). |
Automated tests are executed continuously throughout the SDLC. |
|
Goal |
Identify and address defects early in the development process. |
Provide immediate feedback on the quality of the software. |
|
Techniques |
Unit testing, code reviews, static analysis, early integration testing. |
Automated unit tests, integration tests, functional tests, etc. |
|
Focus |
Early defect detection and prevention. |
Ongoing quality assurance and feedback. |
|
Benefits |
Reduced cost of fixing issues, shorter feedback loop, faster delivery. |
Maintains high confidence in software quality, faster release cycles. |
|
Integration |
Integrated into the beginning or middle stages of the SDLC. |
Integral part of the continuous integration and delivery pipeline. |
Bringing testers into the planning phase allows them to identify ambiguous requirements, suggest testing scenarios, and ensure the design is testable from the start. Early collaboration prevents unnecessary back-and-forth later in development.
Testers can also advise developers on writing test-friendly code. For instance, they may recommend using mocks and substitutes for unready software modules, making integration testing smoother.
Successful shift left testing requires clear quality expectations shared across teams. Developers and testers should be aligned on best practices, technical capabilities, and available testing tools.
Creating a culture of quality involves ongoing training, investment in testing tools, and ensuring that quality is a shared responsibility rather than just the QA team's concern.
Behavior-driven development (BDD) fosters collaboration between technical and non-technical stakeholders. It allows developers, testers, and managers to define test scenarios in plain language, ensuring everyone understands software requirements.
With Jira integration, teams can pull requirements directly into BDD files, enabling testers to write test cases while development is ongoing. This reduces waiting time and allows faster defect resolution, making testing more efficient.
Automation is essential in shift left testing, but teams must decide whether to build or buy automation tools.
Katalon is a comprehensive test automation solution and quality management platform for web, mobile, API, and desktop applications. It provides a unified platform for teams to plan, design, execute, and manage automated testing efforts.
Katalon Platform supports all 4 key elements of shift left testing. Early testing and continuous integration/continuous delivery can easily be achieved thanks to seamless integration with popular CI/CD tools as well as collaboration tools such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, Git, bringing transparency and enhanced communication between team members.
Katalon also offers test management capabilities. Testers can capture application elements and store them in the Object Repository, which is essentially a centralized repository to store test artifacts. These test artifacts, test cases, and data can be shared across team members and reused across projects, improving test reusability.
Curious? Witness the power of Katalon in action here:
Download Katalon and Start Testing (The Better Way)
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