Best Practices for a
Repeatable Shift-Left
Commitment
Mike Plachta
Senior Manager Solutions Engineering
Mike McKethan
Director Quality Engineering and Automation

BEFORE WE GET
STARTED…
The webinar will last approximately 45
minutes to 1 hour (including Q&A)
You can send your questions using the
“Questions” function on GoToWebinar, we
will ask them after the session.
We will send you a link to the recording as
well as this slide deck
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mention @Applause

Presenters for This Session
3
Mike McKethan
Director Quality
Engineering and
Automation
Mike Plachta
Senior Manager
Solutions
Engineering

Today’s Agenda
4
1
3
2
4
Problem Definition
Best Practices
Survey Statistics
Q & A

SHIFT-LEFT STRATEGY AND
QUALITY ENGINEERING

Driving Holistic Quality Throughout the Development Process
Shifting Quality Left - “Quality Engineering”
6
Drives development of a quality product and enables validation throughout the application development lifecycle
Validating a final product meets specified requirements.
Quality Engineering
Quality Assurance
Valuable
Feature
Delivery
(MVP, MVI)
Continuous
Automated
Assessment
Collaboration
& Learn Fast
Feedback
Specification
by Example
Shift Quality Left
Prevent
Defects and
Mitigate Risks

Shift-Left Survey Data: Scope
7
1,800+ RESPONDENTS
QA, PRODUCT &
ENGINEERING ROLES
GLOBAL

Shift-Left is Already Happening
8

How Shift-Left is Helping
9

• Organizations value developers
for their ability to code – which
is what they want to do.
• Forcing them to test new
features takes them away from
code building. 52% of teams
that rely on devs for testing and
spend 8+ hours per week
testing agree that testing
impacts developer productivity.
Shift-Left Can Impact New Code Development
10

"Quality is not an act, it’s a habit." - Aristotle
The biggest factor in the success of an organization’s shift-left strategy is
the acknowledgement that quality is everyone’s responsibility.
The Pillars of a Successful Shift-Left Strategy
Continuous
improvement
Frameworks & Tools
DevOps/DevSecOps/BizDevOps
Quality
Ownership
Valuable
Features
Automation
First
Mentality
Fail
or
Learn
Fast
Quality Engineering
Agile Software Development
Shift-Left Strategy

Quality
Ownership
• Whole team ownership of quality – quality isn’t the
responsibility of one role
• Moving beyond the QA sign-off – whole-team mentality
needed
• Requires a quality champion at the top – management buy-
in is key

Accurate, Executable, and Valuable Features
• Get it right from the beginning
• Remember 80/20 – Pareto Principle
• Behavior-driven development

• Aligns with the Behavior Driven
Development (BDD) or Acceptance Test
Driven Development (ATDD) approaches
• Test Driven Development (TDD)
• Integrating automation into build process
and DevOps pipeline
Test & Automation First Mentality

Natural Language/BDD Example with Page Object Design Pattern
15
Test cases and steps are
written in a normalized format
The steps are
linked to Page
Object through the
Step Definitions
Steps are linked to page object
through the step definitions so you
have single points of maintenance
and industry best practices
Natural language frameworks enable all
members of the quality group to utilize or
create automated test cases while
normalizing test case structure. This helps
to scale any manual execution effort,
especially with Applause’s crowdsourcing
model, and also maintains automation best
practices in design as well as promotes
single points of maintenance.

• Prototyping with the “Three
Amigos”
• Code quality from an automation
perspective
• Development of a Continuous
Integration/ Continuous Delivery
(CI/CD)
Continuous Feedback Fail or Learn Fast

• Retrospectives - used to understand what went well and what areas can be improved
• Idea boards - to foster a culture of continuous improvement where members are rewarded
for ideas that are implemented
• Predictive analytics - help to see the road ahead
• AI - used to identify data patterns in real time to alert development teams ahead of
customer-impacting issues
• The BizDevOps movement is real-time analytics - use application performance monitoring
tools as well as analytics tools to get data about application performance and end-user
behavior instantly - and quantify how well it supports the business’ KPIs
Continuous Improvement & Predictive Analytics

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Lessons From Our Customers
Let’s give you a few examples of some interesting ways folks are making
the shift left.
CI/CD
MVP
BDD

Applause In-Sprint Testing
The Challenge:
• As you prioritize a shift-left approach, every new feature still needs to be tested
manually at least once within your sprint before it’s cleared for release, and you
need testing results back quickly so that developers avoid context switching.
Our Solution: Applause In-Sprint Testing
• With Applause In-Sprint Testing, Applause testers will test new and updated
features immediately after they were developed and before they are merged
into the master code.
• By changing the status of an individual Jira ticket, you will automatically create a
test case and send it to Applause for Applause’s testers to execute. The status
of the Jira ticket will change again when vetted results are ready to view.
• Testing is executed and vetted results are returned within hours, ensuring your
developers do not context switch and stay on task.
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Advantages of Applause In-Sprint Testing
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• In-Sprint Manual Functional Testing from Applause’s Testers
Designed for fast-moving development teams, In-Sprint Testing ensures you conduct
testing quickly and often in smaller chunks without burdening internal teams or waiting for
offshore firms.
• Streamlined Process Built Into Existing Workflows
Applause In-Sprint Testing is built directly into your Jira bug tracking system, leveraging
Applause’s Jira integration capabilities. Change the status of a Jira ticket to send the feature
to Applause for QA, and the status will change again when vetted results are ready to view –
ensuring you never need to leave Jira.
• Avoid Context Switching and Close Tickets Faster
With same-day turnaround for testing results of new features, your engineers will address
issues while they are still familiar with the specifics of the code and avoid context switching.
Applause In-Sprint Testing also enables engineering teams to expand the definition of done
to include testing and fully close tickets faster.
• Expanded Test Results at Different Stages of SDLC
Use Applause In-Sprint Testing for test case execution against the requirements of a new
feature during the sprint, then conduct exploratory testing with all new features at the end
of the sprint to uncover unexpected issues.

How In-Sprint Testing Drives Engagement Earlier in Your SDLC
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Q&A