I am often asked to recommend best practices for building software testing programs. The problem is that it depends on your definition of “best.” What works for an innovative startup developing software and deploying agile development sprints is not necessarily going to suit an established public company launching a new web product. The software development industry is so broad and diverse that there is no one-size-fits-all set of practices I can recommend. Put simply, the “best practices” are those that produce consistent results over time, meaning that they can be standardized. There has been a trend toward shift left testing in the past decade, and I have a few suggestions for getting the most out of development teams taking on this new responsibility.
Shifting Left Testing Supports Agile Software Development
“Shift left testing” means testing software for functional quality during the development phase, rather than waiting for the QA testing phase within the traditional software development cycle. Back when software was packaged for sale and deployment rather than delivered as a service, there was time in the development cycle for a dedicated QA phase. Developers started with a concept, analyzed their requirements and came up with a design before beginning to write the code. Once written, the software code would be integrated within existing systems (if needed) and then the software would be passed on to the QA team. Any bugs were sent back to development to be fixed and sent through the cycle again. All of these phases represented a conceptual move from left to right.
Shift left is a departure from this cycle in which developers test their own software in an effort to speed up the process. This kind of development works particularly well for dev teams engaged in agile development. By having developers test their software as they go, bugs can be identified earlier in the development process, which saves time and resources and enables more thorough testing.
Shift Left is Also Problematic
There are some significant problems with the Shift left method that can’t be ignored. Specifically, developers are being asked to perform functions they were never properly trained to do—and often have no real interest in doing.
Software developers are creative people by nature. Whether self-taught or formally trained, the majority of them have come to their positions in pursuit of creating something. Quality assurance testing, by contrast, is a destructive process. The goal of the QA engineer is to break things—kicking the tires and carefully documenting their destruction. And when you ask your creators to become destroyers, it doesn’t always go well.
We can’t fault developers for not wanting to find faults in their code. Just as the best builders are not the best demolition experts, software developers want to create and then move on from one project to the next. So their reluctance to engage in testing is understandable. It’s part of who they are. The truth is that most developers find testing a monotonous chore. We need to learn how to encourage and incentivize them to become good testers of their own code.
Provide an Encouraging Environment
The first step toward making developers better testers is to educate them on the importance of testing as part of the development process. They may initially think that you’re only interested in saving money on hiring QA testers, or that they are being asked to perform the work of two employees. Introduce shift left testing as an integral part of the development process, explaining that continuous early testing is key to building high-quality software. By putting testing within the context of elevating software quality, developers will become more engaged in the process, raising the stakes and their involvement in projects.
Make Software Testing Easier for Your Developers
Since testing is not likely to be the primary interest of your developers, simplifying the task is going to make it at least more palatable to them. Test automation tools can be a big part of this strategy. Automated test scripts can be run flawlessly, frequently, and with much greater load capacity than with manual testing. You’ll be able to scale your tests to mimic a single user, or thousands of concurrent users, to discover how your software holds up under high demand. Pixel-for-pixel aberrations and errors in your graphic user interface (GUI) can be analyzed more quickly and effectively than with manual testing.
Automated testing also takes much of the monotony out of testing, preventing burnout and resentment among your employees. Writing scripts also has the benefit of being, inherently, a creative, not destructive, process. By integrating the running of scripts into the normal workday of the developer, and emphasizing their value in building the best software possible, testing becomes a valued task, rather than a mindless chore.
Providing Other Incentives
When you adopt shift left testing, you just might be asking your developers to take on a role that they don’t enjoy as much as coding. And they may never enjoy it as much. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t actions you can take. If you want to keep your most valued developers happy and encourage them to stay with you, think about providing other incentives that make the entire job package irresistible. Make your company a great company to work for. From the working environment to other perks and compensation, any way you make your team happy can help them manage integrating new responsibilities.
Testing Tools Lighten the Load
As test automation technology gets more sophisticated, testing tools that incorporate aspects of artificial intelligence technologies to assist in test script generation and self-repair will play a larger role in enabling your developers to focus on the more creative aspects of the job — addressing design requirements and functionality (the “what” and “why” factors) in novel ways, and leaving more analytical, procedural tasks (the “how” factor) up to the tools. As testing tools perform more of the monotonous tasks for us, and with greater accuracy, developers will have more time for the creative tasks that keep them happy. These technologies are evolving as we speak and will address many of the issues described above. But you might still want to consider buying some doughnuts for the break room.
