Involvement during requirements

Shift left, how I despise this term.

“Jeremy, what do you have against the term? It is the new thing going around that is going to make software development easier.”

I have nothing against the concept; it is a method that has shown benefits when studied. What I despise is the term itself and the glorification of what is essentially an old methodology, just repackaged.

Regardless of my thoughts on the term shift left, the concept is essential. A lot of studies out there show the earlier the team gets involved in something, the better it is for execution. Whether you are building a house or the next significant software, it only makes sense.

What about the methodology? Waterfall, iterative, agile, DevOps, to name a few. It is all the same, QA should get involved early. They should not have a say in what is needed (that will be another blog), yet they can ask for some more details in preparation for testing execution. Asking for these details not only helps get the testing effort prepped, but it also allows developers to have a clear direction and that everyone is on the same page.

The critical thing to remember is that early involvement is not the silver bullet. It is just one of many tools out there to make delivery of products faster and with high quality. It has to be integrated with so many other things, automation, stakeholder management and governance, just to name a few.

Maybe my next blog, I will go in more in-depth on my thoughts of repackaging methods instead of keeping what we are using and focus on that.

Speaking of the blog, I would like to say how blown away I am about the number of visitors I had so far this year. I started this a few years ago and tried to be consistent. It was tough, that is until I began to be a regular guest on SPaMcast podcasts. It has been a great year as I gather content for the book I am compiling.

If there is a topic you would like to hear my thoughts on, let me know.