Why is shifting Left in QA?
In this world of cut-throat competition, organizations are constantly looking at reducing costs, increasing revenues and reaching customers faster. With IT being a transformative force for most organizations, IT has a key role to play in helping them meet these demands. The Cost of Quality (CoQ) in IT projects is high, and it is further deteriorated due to defects found late in the lifecycle. However, on analyzing project metrics, we would figure out that about 70% of these defects are induced during requirements and design phases. These problems are prominent in large-scale projects, and the problem could be worse if we get to know the devious state of the project mid-way during integration testing.
Shift Left Testing – Key to Detecting Defects Early
For finding defects early and avoiding the unnecessary trouble, shift left is crucial. Shifting left in testing & QA refers to the integration of testing activities with requirements gathering, designing and development, sooner in the development cycle. Shift left takes care of the infirmities as they occur and also ensure that there are less defects later in the SDLC (Software Development Lifecycle). All this is done through static testing requirements and design, requirements validation, reassuring code quality, elevating system test among other things.
Why Shift Left? What are the Benefits?
By using the shift left methodology, organizations can focus on quality from day one of a project and identify the defects early in the lifecycle as soon as they come up. Some of the key benefits of shifting left are given below.
1. Increases quality and efficiency
The increased levels of automation while shifting left allows for:
• Reducing human error
• Increasing test coverage by running more tests in same time
• Code quality checks
• Allowing more time for testers to focus on more inspiring and fulfilling tasks
• Performance monitoring over time
• Reducing issues that arises during production
• Built-in security checks
Apart from these benefits, being able to start testing sooner results in more quality, as testers are not dashed to find all the errors at the end.
2. Reduces cost of development and testing
It is an old saying by Larry Smith, “Bugs are cheap when caught young.”
Now, the main aim of agile testing is to detect the errors as early as possible. When testing is carried out with every build, the errors that are found become easier to detect and locate and can be less expensive to fix. Assuring the quality as we go ahead also means eliminating the high costs and the redundant work of going back and re-doing the things again.
3. Gain a competitive edge
By shifting left, you can gain advantages such as speed up time to market. Shifting left addresses the issue of accelerating development without sacrificing quality.
Shift-left testing has become a key enabler for increasing efficiency and quality. In shift-left testing, every member holds an equal responsibility for producing high-quality software. The ultimate aim is to produce a quality product in less time. Now, who would not want that?
TestingXperts is the front runner in offering Agile testing solutions to a wide range of industries including healthcare, insurance, pharmaceuticals, telecommunications, and much more. We have process enablers that help in accelerating the whole process in a cost-effective manner. Contact us to get acquainted with our agile methodologies.
