How Shift Left Testing Can Improve Your QA Strategy

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Your team is in the final stretch of a project when suddenly a critical bug appears. Deadlines are approaching, stress levels are high, and fixing the problem throws the entire schedule into chaos.

Does this sound familiar?

This is exactly the kind of situation that round-robin testing can avoid.

In shift-left testing, instead of running tests at the end of development, you integrate testing and development like bread and butter. The result: you'll be able to catch bugs earlier, collaborate better, and avoid last-minute disasters.

But how do you implement a shift-left testing approach? That’s exactly what we’ll cover in this article.

What is the Left Shift Testing Approach?
Shift left testing is a proactive approach in software development in which testing activities are planned canadian cto cio email list earlier in the development cycle, "shifting left" in the project schedule.

Instead of waiting until the end of development to start testing, testing begins during the design and development phases.

This effective approach helps detect and fix bugs earlier, reducing the cost and time required to resolve them later, while ensuring a smoother user experience at launch.

For example, if you work at an e-commerce company that is building a new payment feature, you can implement shift-left testing to involve testers as soon as the design is written. Automated tests would run as the code is written to catch issues such as incorrect tax calculations or errors in the payment gateway.

Difference between Left Shift Test and Traditional Test
How are left shift tests different from traditional tests? Let's understand the difference better:

Aspect Left Shift Tests Traditional Tests
Testing Program Testing begins from the early stages of development Testing occurs after the development phase
It focuses on detecting defects at the end of the development cycle, typically with system-level or user acceptance testing after features are fully built.
Uses tools (such as Selenium, JUnit, or Jenkins) and practices such as Test Driven Development (TDD) or Behavior Driven Development (BDD), which integrate testing into the code and design phases
Mitigate risks at an early stage, offering more stability and predictability. Expose critical risks closer to deadlines, leading to rushed fixes or delays
Difference between left-handed testing and traditional testing