In modern Agile software development, businesses are pressured to deliver quickly and with high quality.

Launching products fast allows companies to capture market opportunities, stay ahead of competitors, and generate revenue sooner. Speed also helps companies maintain momentum in today’s market, where customer expectations for rapid innovation are stronger than ever.

At the same time, delivering high-quality software builds trust with customers, enhances the company’s reputation, and increases long-term product adoption.

However, when businesses focus too heavily on speed at the expense of quality to get products out the door, it often results in costly setbacks. In these situations, it’s common for testing to be limited or done later in the process, usually after development is finished, resulting in a reactive approach.

The speed-focused development approach leads to missed defects, technical debt, and last-minute firefighting as issues are discovered too late in the development process. Discovering issues later delays releases and increases the cost and effort of fixing them, especially if they’ve already been embedded into the product.

In the long run, this approach slows development, as teams constantly deal with rework and bug fixes.

This is where the shift-left testing strategy makes a difference. By moving testing earlier in the development process, teams build quality into the product from the start, versus trying to “assure quality” at the end. Instead of a phase, testing is viewed as activities completed throughout the development process.

What Does Shift-Left Testing Look Like?

Shift-left testing transforms how teams approach quality. It embeds testing activities early and continuously throughout development.

Instead of waiting until development is complete, testers, developers, product owners, and other team members collaborate to build quality into the product at every stage. This proactive approach prevents many defects and catches others early when they’re easier and cheaper to fix.

The result is faster, more reliable releases.

In a recent project, we conducted QA planning meetings before user stories were added to the backlog. These planning meetings involved the product owner, at least one tester, and a developer.

We’d start with the conversation by reviewing and discussing the story requirements to ensure the acceptance criteria made sense and were testable, observable, and measurable.

Then, we’d discuss a testing strategy for each story, ensuring everyone understood what we wanted to test and how to do it. We used the test automation pyramid to guide our test planning, focusing on the lowest levels possible in the test automation pyramid to target functionality efficiently.

In addition, we used techniques like Example Mapping with digital sticky notes created with Miro boards to visualize the testing strategy. The sticky notes represented the user story, business rules, and test scenarios.

Sometimes, we’d add additional sticky notes representing the associated test levels for the targeted scenarios.

These conversations, combined with visuals, helped our team understand the user story and related tests.

Continuous Testing and Developer Collaboration

Shift-left testing extends into development, too. Testers and developers work hand-in-hand throughout development to build quality into the code at every step.

Pair Testing

Relevant strategies include pair testing, where testers and developers write and review automated tests together as the code is developed.

One approach to pair testing is “Ping-Pong Programming,” where one person writes the test method while the other person writes the code to make the test pass. This approach is closely related to Test-Driven Development (TDD), where development is guided by the tests created before development begins.

Another approach is “Tour Guide and Navigator,” where one person (the “tour guide”) leads a testing session by interacting with the application while the other person (the “navigator”) observes and asks questions. We used this approach on a recent project as a post-standup activity involving the whole team.

These pairing practices allow developers to share their deep software engineering knowledge, testers to share their deep test engineering knowledge, and other team members to share their knowledge.

The Continuous Integration Pipeline

Integrating automated tests into a Continuous Integration (CI) pipeline is crucial to shift-left testing.

Every time a developer pushes new code, tests run immediately, providing fast feedback and catching issues before they snowball into expensive-to-fix problems, consistent with early testing and increasing overall development time.

Over time, this integrated approach, where testing and development work together seamlessly, reduces rework and expedites development cycles.

The approach allows teams to deliver high-quality products faster and with more confidence. By focusing on testing early and continuously, shift-left testing empowers teams to prevent issues rather than react to them, allowing for smoother releases, fewer last-minute surprises, and software that meets customer expectations.

The Benefits of Shifting Left

Benefits of adopting a shift-left testing strategy include:

Earlier Testing

A core advantage of shifting left is the ability to start testing activities at the requirements-gathering phase or earlier.

Instead of waiting until development is complete, teams catch issues before development, such as in the feature idea or design mock phases, reducing the time and cost of fixing them later.

Shorter Feedback Loops

Continuous testing ensures that every code change is tested immediately. This results in rapid feedback, allowing teams to address issues quickly.

Increased Collaboration

Shift-left testing promotes a collaborative environment where the whole team works together from the beginning to build quality into the product, contributing their unique expertise.

Reduced Time to Market

By embedding quality throughout the development process, teams avoid the last-minute headaches and rework that often delay releases and streamline the entire process.

Reduction in rework, faster feedback, and improved team collaboration result in quicker release cycles and a reduced time to market without compromising quality.

Final Thoughts on Embracing Shift-Left Testing

Shift-left testing is more than just a strategy. It’s a proactive transformation in how teams approach quality throughout the development lifecycle.

To start, collaborate with your team and consider how to integrate test activities into each development phase. Start small by reviewing and testing user stories during the planning and requirements phases. From there, incrementally increase continuous testing and collaboration using techniques mentioned in earlier sections, such as pair programming.

Also, keep your project’s context in mind. There’s no “one size fits all” approach, so adapt specific tools and strategies that fit your team’s unique needs. By starting small and scaling thoughtfully, shift-left testing will become a natural part of your workflow.