I heard this on a recent Call for Insights (with Simon Tomes and Louise Woodhams), and it made me chuckle.
It's in reference to making attempts to shifting-left, but not really feeling the results.
When we hear so many references on how to do things, it can feel frustrating if we are not achieving them.
However, over the past year, I came to realise that there are things like test automation have been vastly over talked about. It's not that good things aren't being done in test automation. It's not that test automation is being done right, or wrong. Shift-left has been spoken about alot too, just because they are, doesn't mean you should or can be practising the ideas (at this moment in time).
It's not that test automation is or isn't important. It's more that the amount we talk about it makes it feel like it's the most important thing about quality and testing. Or that many of us can feel inadequate with how we do our actual work.
The balance is off. Test automation expectations need balancing out. And we shouldn't expect reality to match up to stories being told online. It's not that these stories aren't true, it's more that they are glimpses, not full pictures.
For many, still, test automation is still not test automating. And that is ok.
The point is not to forget that just because people talk about stuff, it does not mean that it is working well for everyone. Or that it is easy to figure out.
What is spoken about outside of day-to-day work reflects within our industry, it is truth in a sense, but full stories are never told. There are many things that aren't working out, but we don't or can't necessarily share about it.
We can say the same for shift-left, or shift-right, or shift-everywhere, or quality coaching, or ai testing, agentic testing, or accessibilty...etc.
People talk about shift-lefting, many of us are not there yet. And that's ok. No need to give yourself a hard time.
By all means, listen to what everyone is sharing, learn from it, be inspired. I am every day. Use it to lift yourself up, not compare where you are, nor frustrate yourself, or judge your teams progress.
We can show up with care and make progress, it will look like what it looks like, it likely will look different from how others talk about it.
You can even decide that how others are talking about quality simply just won't work for your own situation, that's ok. Our conversations and ideas can still inspire one another to make progress.
Call for Insights reference, I'd recommend listening in:
https://www.ministryoftesting.com/insights/advocacy-beyond-developers
