It seems to be that risk based testing is an approach that everyone knows they should be doing – but when asked to justify that on the spot, it can be hard to come up with concise answers.

In my experience, there are lots of myths and misconceptions in the testing industry around how risk based testing should be implemented, so I’m going to cover why and how to take a risk based approach.

The shift left approach is a common buzzword in the industry. Most testers know that it makes good sense, but are you implementing it correctly? 

Shift left testing is all about delivering the highest quality solution at the lowest possible cost, by shifting your testing to earlier in the project process. Although shift left approach testing is what’s widely used, we’ve found that the most effective approach is what we call ‘Shift left and compress’.

CI/CD – continuous integration and continuous delivery followed by continuous deployment – is part of a software release process that is designed to speed up the time to market for software. Specifically CI/CD creates a pipeline of frequent testing, validation and deployment of code. It is part of a wider DevOps approach to software development which encourages greater levels of collaboration between development and IT operations teams.

Software development is a costly business. Some of our clients come to us with the explicit aim of cutting roll out costs. More often, they come to us knowing that by improving testing processes they can maximise investment in their software development team. By increasing efficiency of testing processes and therefore the effectiveness of defect prevention, there will be cost savings, whether they appear on the bottom line or are reinvested in further development.