Shift-left testing involves planning testing activities in advance and starting them earlier in the software development life cycle (SDLC). It transforms traditional QA into QE: Quality Engineering.
Shift-left testing includes activities like assisting developers with unit testing, automating integration test cases, employing virtualized services, and prioritizing feedback.
Benefits of shift-left testing include cost reduction, increased efficiency, higher quality, improved competitiveness, and attracting top talent in the industry.
Challenges of shift-left testing involve the need for a cultural shift within teams, potential bottlenecks in testing phases, and the complexity of aligning various roles and processes.
To overcome bottlenecks, service virtualization and automation tools like Jenkins can be utilized to streamline testing processes and eliminate errors earlier in development.
Shift left testing can enhance collaboration between testers and developers, leading to a higher level of quality and allowing testers to focus on strategic testing tasks.
Shift-left testing enables testers to coach developers on writing better code, perform business cases, penetration testing, and implement smarter testing solutions.
The approach of shift-left testing provides an overall improvement in the quality of software products, ensuring a more efficient and strategic testing process.