Published: 21 Aug 2017

Shift Left and Shift Right Testing Approach for Quality & Agility

Last Updated: 05 Jan 2024

• Agile Testing
  
• DevOps QA
  

In a quest to achieve quicker delivery of software, organizations are increasingly adopting the Agile development model. However, to maximize the benefits of Agile software development, testing should be executed simultaneously with development. For this reason, organizations have been adopting DevOps for the last couple of years. The adoption of DevOps has helped teams to collaborate more, and implement practices such as ‘Shift-Left’ and ‘Shift Right’ testing. These practices are helping enterprises in building quality right from the beginning of the project. In this blog, we will discuss the importance of ‘shift left’ and ‘shift right’ testing approaches to ensure quality and agility.

Contents 1. Shift Left Testing Approach
2. Why shift-left?
3. What are the types of the Shift-Left Testing model?
4. Shift Right Testing Approach
5. What are the different methods of shift-right approach?
6. Why shift-right?
7. Conclusion

 

Shift Left Testing Approach

 

As the name suggests, the shift left testing approach starts to focus on testing as early as the requirements phase. Generally, the software testing process originates with static review of requirements specifications with a focus to identify and remove ambiguities in requirements and enhance the quality of requirements consumed down-stream. Shift left testing helps in identifying any defects early in the lifecycle.

The shift-left testing approach introduces testers at the primary stage of development to help them understand what requirements are being scoped and what the testability of those requirements is.  Shift left testing also helps testing teams to identify high-level test scenarios and start work on the detailed test cases.

Why shift-left?

– Time and resources are saved: Shift left approach helps in finding defects earlier in the software development lifecycle, allowing resources to invest less time in finding defects, thereby increasing quality and improving efficiency.

– Defects are found and fixed early: It’s very cost-effective to start identifying defects in requirements/user stories as it helps the testers to understand the testability of each requirement.

– Faster product delivery: Shift-left testing streamlines the development process, thereby ensuring faster delivery.

– Enhanced design: Through shift-left testing, bottlenecks, roadblocks, and possible performance failures are detected early on in the lifecycle, leading to a better design.

– Improved timelines and better ROI: With the shift-left testing there is less rework, projects work according to their regular timelines and the quality is always at the top. This ensures in delivering faster to the market with improved ROI.

Thus, the shift-left testing approach is an easy and economical way of reducing the time, efforts, and cost in improving the software at a complex state.

What are the types of the Shift-Left Testing model?

– Traditional shift left testing: In this testing approach, the focus is exclusively on the unit and integration testing by using API testing and modern test tools. This approach even has a drawback as it fails to focus on system-level and acceptance testing.

– Incremental shift left testing: In this testing approach, complex developments are broken down into smaller pieces to simplify the process. This practice of allowing the smaller segments to be tested one after the other helps the segments to be built upon each other. The incremental shift-left approach is widely adopted and used in the projects that have been having high complexity in the hardware.

– Agile/DevOps: This method helps in performing testing in numerous sprints and it is widely applied for developmental testing without operational testing. The Agile/DevOps Shift Left testing has gained popularity and it is preferred widely by many enterprises.

– Model-based shift left testing: This is the latest trend in shift left testing with a concept to find bugs at the earliest. Generally, shift-left testing is practiced at the early stage of a development cycle. But, in this method, the testing approach is during the design and development phase. This includes executable requirements, architecture and design models and helps in eliminating 45-65 percent of errors introduced in these early phases.

Shift Right Testing Approach

As we all know that shift-left is critical to software quality assurance and is an essential step in ensuring quality from the start, this approach alone is not enough to maintain performance and user experience. This has resulted in organizations adopting a ‘Shift-Right’ approach. The shift right testing approach initiates the testing task from the right that means the post-production of the software. In this approach performance and usability of an application are continuously monitored and feedback is sought continuously from users to understand the user behavior.

This approach helps in launching new features in the application fast and test by simulating its behavior in production.  This is achieved by gathering continuous feedback from the users through both formal and informal communication channels.

What are the different methods of shift-right approach?

A/B Testing:

This type of testing is commonly referred to as split testing or bucket testing. In this method, various new designs of a webpage are tested against the original designs of a page. The goal of this testing type is to determine which design generates more conversions. A/B testing is a part of the Conversion Rate Optimization process where the page with variation is compared with the ones of the original page. The page that helps in achieving better conversion is considered as the winner in the challenge.

Continuous Quality Monitoring (CQM):

This approach helps in improving the system quality during any software life cycle stage. A wide range of different tools and techniques are used to monitor the quality of the application. Code instrumentation, real user monitoring, and virtual user monitoring are a few CQM techniques that are used in the software during its production phase.

Chaos Testing:

In this method of testing, errors are introduced to the system to check its functionality and recovery in error conditions. By understanding how the system responds in stress conditions, it becomes easier for a team to identify and fix the bugs. The principle of chaos testing is to verify how the system responses when sudden attacks are introduced in the infrastructure, or the application or the network. The results achieved with this practice helps in improving the overall application standard.

Why shift-right?

– Quick feedback: Shift-right approach, allows the teams to gather user feedback and incorporate them in quick succession.

– Maximum test coverage: Shift right approach to testing provides testers the freedom of testing more and testing timely. This helps in eliminating more defects at the preliminary stage and provide a better quality application.

– More automation: Automation saves time and effort. Automating large parts of the process, when features and patches are being built into the application, helps in saving time and eventually helps in providing quality at speed.

Thus, adopting a Shift right testing approach offers improved customer experience and enhanced test coverage.

Conclusion

Considering the above-stated details, both shift-left and shift-right testing approaches are equally important and help in delivering a unique and different way of testing the software application. At TestingXperts, we follow both ‘Shift-Left’ and ‘Shift-Right’ software testing approach that adequately touches each and every aspect of the application to ensure best possible quality. Connect with us and allow us to make your software ready for business quickly.