Topic: "Shift Left Testing - Engineering A practical QA strategy”

Synopsis: Building a process is the cheapest way to build a culture I have been taught. I have worked in several different organisations and testing almost every eventually becomes the last step. Shift Left testing has been talked about in the market and is considered a key practice for successful software development. But unfortunately, the essence fizzles out because teams do not fully understand it, very few people are advocating for it and the never-ending pressure of time does not allow us to follow it properly. From my experience I have been able to build cultures where shift left testing is understood and also followed without feeling the QA is stifling the overall delivery. It's key that leadership sees value in the vision since a culture shift is more profound when top-down and also leaders understand the cost of a bad implementation. One of the key contributors to making this shift is getting test designs and cases completed before development begins so the devs and QAs are fully aligned on the requirement and in a true sense we can build Test Driven Development.
Another aspect of my talk is on QA strategy. This document is constantly evolving and is a guiding principle for the entire engineering team and not just QA. There are a lot of websites which talk about what all a test strategy document should contain but no one mentions the most relevant aspect of how it can be practically followed and keeps referring to it. A strategy document should build a shared ownership of testing between QA and devs. It should define how testing should occur and complete while constantly taking cue from the shift left mindset. The strategy should touch on Automation principles, Jira lifecycles, Test reporting and many more surrounding pillars of engineering Quality assurance.