Shift Left Testing: What is it?
First off, the “Shift left” idea encourages early collaboration between the Testing team and all other stakeholders. As a result, they can easily comprehend the specifications and create test cases that will assist the programme “Fail Fast” and provide the team with the opportunity to address any issues as soon as possible.
The Shift Left approach entails including testers much earlier in the software development life cycle, allowing them to better comprehend requirements, software design, architecture, coding, and functionality. They would also be able to ask challenging questions of customers, business analysts, and developers, get clarifications and offer feedback whenever it is helpful to the team.
The testers’ participation and comprehension will enable them to fully understand the product, consider alternative situations and create actual scenarios based on the behaviour of the programme to aid the team in finding bugs even before any coding has been done.
In Shift Left, what should testers do differently?
The following are some significant differences that the Testers make while using the Shift Left Strategy:
#1) The test team should get involved with the system as soon as the project is started to build relationships with the rest of the team and the company and to be able to contribute important information at each level of the software development process.
#2) The test team should collaborate with the business and operations team to understand the programme, offer a clear picture of demand, and aid in effectively planning resource ramp-up requirements, training requirements, and testing tool requirements for the programme well in advance.
#3) To gain a clear understanding of the product and design a unified testing strategy and plan for an optimised testing effort, test teams must engage with all business stakeholders early in the software development process. They must also analyse dependency on test environments, third parties, stubs, etc., and prepare a solid automation strategy and framework as well as a test data management plan.
#4) Rather than only being in charge of testing activities, the test team must collaborate with the rest of the team to provide excellent test leadership and advice to the team while keeping the long-term product vision in mind.
#5) The success of every programme depends on its needs, and projects with well-specified criteria are successful.
The requirements must be reviewed and analysed by testers for any ambiguity, improved clarity, completeness, testability, description of acceptance criteria, etc. throughout the requirements planning process.
Additionally, it’s necessary to comprehend the dependencies and implementation methodologies, as well as to identify any missing needs.
Clear requirements enable software to “Fail Fast” and address any errors as soon as possible.
#6) Provide adequate specificity and clarity to the criteria by citing actual instances that highlight the characteristics that are in use.
#7) Testers must routinely attend design review meetings, comprehend the architecture and design of the product, find design defects and recommend other solutions. They must also find design loopholes and develop test scenarios to exploit them.
#8) To avoid bugs from being ingrained in the programme and spreading later, testers must do static testing (reviews) well in advance and offer input on important project papers.
#9) The testing team should work with the design and development teams to provide test cases beforehand so that the code may be developed and can cover all potential real-time scenarios and business flows.
#10) The test team must create strong and reliable test scenarios to ensure that there are few faults found during testing and that big problem are prevented before the testing phase even begins.
#11) To prevent defects from developing further, testers must test as soon as possible, whether on a standalone or local system.
Finding the Defects as early as possible using every available method is the core of the “Shift Left” idea for testers.
Advantages of Left Shift Testing
Based on the agile manifesto, the Shift Left method also provides several benefits.
As follows:
#1) People and interactions above procedures and equipment.
#2) Working software is preferred over thorough documentation.
#3) Collaboration with the customer during contract negotiations following a strategy of overreacting to change.
#4) While the items on the right do have worth, it is clear that we place greater value on the items on the left.
#5) Shift Left aims to include testing earlier in the process, making testing better and more effective while also raising the level of software quality.
In a nutshell, the Shift Left Testing procedure is:
#1) Early fault detection can lower project costs.
#2) Testing constantly, repeatedly, and ultimately reduces faults
#3) To speed up time to market and automate everything.
#4) To concentrate on client needs and enhance the customer experience.
Conclusion
The “Shift Left” notion completely changed the “Testing” job.
Before, the main goal of testing was “Defect Detection,” but now the goal of the “Shift Left” is a trip from “Early Defect Detection to Static Testing.”
Therefore, Shift Left represents a Big Leap in the Software Development technique for the software industry in terms of accelerating time to market, enhancing software quality, and decreasing “Time to Market.”
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