Shift-left testing

Shift-left testing is an approach that emphasizes moving testing activities earlier in the software development lifecycle. It focuses on identifying and addressing defects during the initial stages of development, such as requirement analysis and design, rather than waiting until later phases. 

It’s the opposite of shift-right testing, where testing happens in production with real users and data. Together, they form a complete testing approach. 

A security team spots potential vulnerabilities during architecture reviews, before any code is written. They work with developers to design secure solutions upfront, rather than discovering security holes during pre-release testing. 

This prevents expensive rework and builds security into the foundation of the product. 

Fixing a bug right after you create it might take minutes. Finding that same bug weeks later takes hours to investigate, fix, and retest. Shift-left catches problems when they're cheap to fix and helps teams build quality into their product from the start, rather than trying to test it later. 

Shift-left demands more from everyone. Testers need to understand requirements and architecture deeply enough to spot problems early. Developers need to write testable code and run tests as they work. Teams need tools and processes that support early testing. 

But the biggest challenge? Culture change—meaning getting everyone to see testing as a shared responsibility that starts on day one. 

Common Misconceptions:

Benefits of Shift-Left Testing:

Shift-left testing is a approach in which testing activities are started during early phases of software development life cycle. Unlike traditional approach where testing phase used to be last phase of SDLC, Shift-left testing activities are performed alongside during design and development phases to help reduce costly bugs caught at later stages.

Advantages of Shift-left testing :
1. Involving testing team during the design phase - they can provide their valuable feedback based on their domain knowledge, experience and existing or legacy system by testing the requirement. As a result, any issues found can be fixed at this stage rather than finding them in later stages

2. Invovling testing team during development phase - test document, test cases created and shared with developers help them to develop the software for those test cases which developer might have missed to implement. Unit and Integration testing can be well shaped and implemented at this stage

3. Post development(Traditional Testing Phase) - By this time most of the testing is done. Feedback is shared at each stage and is implemented. Testing team get a refined version of software where they need not to be trapped in small bugs. They are already fixed. More focus and concentration is on how user is going to use the software and at this stage testers can penetrate and deep dive to ensure no major issues are there.