The Holistic Testing Model
05 May 2026
In this moment:
Lisa Crispin
Janet Gregory
What is Holistic Testing? The Holistic Testing model, developed by Janet Gregory and Lisa Crispin, maps testing activity across every stage of an infinite development loop: discover, plan, understand, build, deploy, release, observe, and learn. The model deliberately avoids the image of a horizontal line with a start and end point, which terms like "shift left" and "shift right" imply, and instead frames testing as something woven throughout a continuous cycle. It replaced the language of "agile testing" not because that work changed, but because agile testing had become the norm and no longer said anything distinctive.
Why Holistic Testing matters? Testing is still treated in many teams as a phase that happens after coding, or at best a single point in a DevOps loop. The Holistic Testing model challenges that by involving the whole team, developers, product owners, testers, and business stakeholders, at every stage.
How it relates to continuous development. The loop structure mirrors the DevOps cycle but makes one thing explicit that DevOps diagrams often obscure: testing is not a stage in the cycle, it happens within every stage. It also accounts for the messiness of real development — teams sometimes need to pause, loop back, and re-examine earlier stages when unknowns surface. The model is also deliberately adaptable. A heavily regulated product and a marketing content site have entirely different risks, and their version of the loop should look different too.
Good quotes on Holistic Testing:
Good quotes on Holistic Testing:
"When we think testing holistically, we want to be thinking about the whole loop, the infinite loop."
"A lot of the DevOps loops actually have testing as a phase, and that drives me crazy."
"By just training the testers, it's not good enough."
"The highest performing teams and organizations that I have worked with, have taken a holistic point of view to the quality of their product, and understand how testing can support that vision."
"Context is everything. What works for a heavily regulated team working on a heavily regulated product versus somebody who's doing content management for a marketing site — what they need, what their risks are, are completely different."
Learn more about Holistic Testing:
- Testing from a holistic point of view
- Agile Testing vs. Holistic Testing
- Ask Me Anything - Holistic Testing
- Holistic Testing: Weave Quality into Your Product (Book)
- Engineering Quality Podcast, episode on Holistic Testing
- The community writing trend towards quality engineering, continuous quality and holistic testing
Rosie Sherry
CEO & Founder at Ministry of Testing
She/Her
I've been working in the software testing and quality engineering space since the year 2000 whilst also combining it with my love for education and community. It turns out quality, community and education go nicely hand in hand.
🎓 MoT-STEC qualified
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