Importance of Early Testing in Development

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗼𝗻𝗹𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 "𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁" 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘄𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝘁 𝗮𝗹𝘄𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝗴𝗼𝗲𝘀. I wrote that in 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝘆𝗯𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗰 𝗘𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗽𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗲 because after 20+ years in software and systems engineering, the pattern never changes. Organizations treat testing and security as a final gate. Then they act surprised when defects found at the end cost 10x more to fix. The Ariane 5 rocket explosion in 1996 is still the textbook example. A software error in the inertial reference system, caught too late, destroyed a $370M mission 37 seconds after launch. That was 30 years ago. And most organizations still test late. Shift Left means moving testing, security, and validation to the beginning of the lifecycle, not the end. In 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝘆𝗯𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗰 𝗘𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗽𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗲, I describe six ways to do this: - Test-first development: write tests before code, define acceptance criteria upfront - Continuous security testing: threat modeling early, automated scans in CI/CD - Automated testing at every level: unit, integration, performance, chaos engineering - Model-based testing: autogenerate test cases from system models - Digital twin-based testing: simulate before you build (NASA did this for the Mars Rover) - Risk-based testing: focus resources on what matters most 𝗧𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝘀 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗰𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗔𝗜. AI accelerates development, but it also produces code with hidden bugs, degraded logic, and latent security flaws. Without automated tests and security checks validating that output continuously, you are just shipping faster in the wrong direction. Shift Left is not a testing strategy. It is a survival strategy. What does your team test first? #CyberneticEnterprise #ShiftLeft #DevSecOps #TestAutomation #ContinuousTesting #SoftwareQuality

Founders - Don't Over-Index on Perfection Many product teams wait too long to start user testing. They worry about looking incompetent if their product isn't perfect. But you need to embrace continuous testing and feedback from the start. Perfection shouldn't block progress. The insights you'll gain are invaluable. You'll learn not just what users are doing, but why. Their motivations can shift over time. Testing early prevents wasted effort later. You can iterate faster if you start sooner. The feedback will make your product better fit user needs. So get over the ego issues of seeming unprepared. Put your imperfect product in front of users. Co-create with users instead. Their input will make it better. Don't wait! What lessons have you learned from early user testing? How do you balance perfection and progress?

⏳ Late Human Factors = months/years lost + millions spent 💵 Over the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing personal, real-world examples of why integrating #HumanFactors earlier leads to: - more intuitive, safe, and effective devices - meaningful time and cost savings - successful regulatory submissions Over the last decade, I’ve seen many companies only consider HF at the V&V stage 💔 1️⃣ A pre-summative study reveal the need for an entirely new training programme 2️⃣ A validation fail because the user interface didn’t adequately consider colour-blind users 3️⃣ A validation study uncover a mechanical failure that should have been caught during verification 4️⃣ An FDA pre-sub meeting confirm that simulated use alone wasn’t sufficient. Actual-use testing was required 5️⃣ Two rapid formative studies + ongoing expert HF reviews (over five months) cut six months off the development timeline (earlier validation confidence, faster submission, investor timelines met) 6️⃣A device that was intuitive by design become less usable once the IFU was used All examples will be shared in an anonymised way, with full respect for client and device confidentiality. Stay tuned! My hope is this encourages more teams to integrate Human Factors earlier and throughout development, when it can have the greatest impact ❤️

Just last week, a friend who leads Engineering at a fintech company told me something that stuck with me: "Our team spent 30+ hours debugging a memory leak in production that was introduced by a PR merged 3 weeks ago. The engineer who wrote it had already moved on to different tasks, and context-switching back to that code was incredibly painful." This is the hidden tax of detecting non-functional issues too late in the development cycle. Studies show bugs cost 10-100x more to fix when found in production vs. development. What if you could shift ALL your non-functional testing left? Not just unit tests, but performance, load, memory, and security tests BEFORE merging PRs? We've been obsessed with solving this problem at Signadot. Our approach: create lightweight "shadow deployments" of services being changed in PRs, without duplicating entire environments. The results we're seeing are game-changing: - Memory leaks caught before they wake up on-call engineers at 3AM - 30% performance degradations identified during code review, not in production - Load tests running automatically on PRs, preventing capacity issues I'm curious: what's the most painful non-functional issue your team discovered too late? And what would change about your development process if you could catch these issues at PR time? #ShiftLeft #SoftwareEngineering #DevOps #PerformanceTesting

I’ve seen brilliant teams push amazing code - only to watch it fall apart post-launch. Not because the logic was wrong. But because the risks weren’t explored early enough. Testing isn’t a phase - it’s a mindset. You don’t sprinkle it in after the product is built. You build with it - so confidence is baked in from day one. Here’s something that stuck with me: According to recent research, 56% of critical production failures could’ve been caught with early-stage exploratory testing. That’s not just a stat. That’s lost sleep. That’s brand trust, evaporating. The smartest teams I’ve worked with? They treat QA not as insurance, but as early innovation - a way to ask better questions before users find the wrong answers. ✨ The more I leaned into early testing, the more I realized It’s not about finding what’s broken. It’s about uncovering what’s possible. If clarity is the goal… Why wait until launch to look for it? #QualityEngineering #ExploratoryTesting #SoftwareTesting #rupeshgarg #FrugalTesting #QA

As a client project manager, I consistently found that offshore software development teams from major providers like Infosys, Accenture, IBM, and others delivered software that failed 1/3rd of our UAT tests after the provider's independent dedicated QA teams passed it. And when we got a fix back, it failed at the same rate, meaning some features cycled through Dev/QA/UAT ten times before they worked. I got to know some of the onshore technical leaders from these companies well enough for them to tell me confidentially that we were getting such poor quality because the offshore teams were full of junior developers who didn't know what they were doing and didn't use any modern software engineering practices like Test Driven Development. And their dedicated QA teams couldn't prevent these quality issues because they were full of junior testers who didn't know what they were doing, didn't automate tests and were ordered to test and pass everything quickly to avoid falling behind schedule. So, poor quality development and QA practices were built into the system development process, and independent QA teams didn't fix it. Independent dedicated QA teams are an outdated and costly approach to quality. It's like a car factory that consistently produces defect-ridden vehicles only to disassemble and fix them later. Instead of testing and fixing features at the end, we should build quality into the process from the start. Modern engineering teams do this by working in cross-functional teams. Teams that use test-driven development approaches to define testable requirements and continuously review, test, and integrate their work. This allows them to catch and address issues early, resulting in faster, more efficient, and higher-quality development. In modern engineering teams, QA specialists are quality champions. Their expertise strengthens the team’s ability to build robust systems, ensuring quality is integral to how the product is built from the outset. The old model, where testing is done after development, belongs in the past. Today, quality is everyone’s responsibility—not through role dilution but through shared accountability, collaboration, and modern engineering practices.

I had a great chat with Daniel Mullins recently, and he articulated a frustration that lies at the heart of so many challenges in product development. Too often, testing is not really validation. Many product teams operate on a model where an idea, often driven by opinion or what a competitor is doing, enters a full development cycle. Significant time and resources are invested in building the feature to perfection. Only at the very end, just before deployment, is an "experiment" run to check that it works. This isn't validation; it's a final quality check. The horse has already bolted. You’re not de-risking the idea; you’re just checking the execution of a decision that was made long ago, based on an unproven assumption. True validation, as Daniel's point suggests, should happen at the very beginning of the process. It's about using experimentation as a core part of product discovery, not just delivery. It’s about testing the fundamental assumptions behind an idea before it consumes valuable engineering resources. How does your organisation ensure that 'validation' happens at the beginning of the product lifecycle, not just as a final check at the end? #experimentation #cro #productmanagement #growth #digitalexperience #experimentationledgrowth #elg #growthexperimentation

Testing isn’t about proving what works—it’s about uncovering what breaks before the user does. Strong QA practices go beyond checklists. They anticipate risks, challenge assumptions, and protect user trust. > Test like a real user, in real conditions > Start testing early—shift left to catch issues sooner > Automate repetitive and regression checks to save time and reduce Human error > Prioritize high‑risk, high‑impact areas where failures matter most > Keep test cases clear, concise, and easy to maintain > Validate across different environments, browsers, and devices > Use realistic, imperfect data to simulate real‑world scenarios > Recheck fixes to prevent regressions from creeping back in > Explore creatively to uncover unexpected issues > Push the system’s limits to reveal hidden weaknesses Quality isn’t just about passing tests—it’s about building confidence in the product. When QA is treated as a strategic partner, teams deliver not only faster but smarter, with fewer surprises in production. #QAEngineering #SoftwareTesting #QualityMatters #TechCulture #Automation

Seeing a lot of discussions around Shift Left testing lately, and it seems like there's a bit of confusion. Shift Left is fundamentally an approach to development, NOT a standalone test strategy. Yes, shifting testing to earlier stages of development is part of Shift Left, but we must not lose sight of the bigger picture. Over-relying on Shift Left can narrow our focus to mainly functional testing, often leaving out crucial aspects like performance, security, and accessibility. These non-functional requirements, if not addressed early, become costly and complex to fix later on. Additionally, putting too much emphasis on Shift Left can sometimes reduce collaboration between development and testing teams. Developers might not always grasp the depth of effective testing, and testers might feel their expertise is underutilized, impacting overall software quality. Instead, embracing Continuous Testing offers a more holistic approach. It promotes testing throughout the entire development lifecycle and encourages ongoing collaboration among developers, testers, and other stakeholders. This ensures a comprehensive understanding and improvement of software quality over time. Let's focus on continuous learning and improvement, integrating a wide range of testing activities to truly enhance software quality. Remember, it's not about just shifting testing left; it's about continuous, collaborative testing throughout the development process. #softwaretesting #shiftleft #continuoustesting #softwaredevelopment #collaboration #testautomation #brijeshsays

Flight test is the first operator Flight test teams are often described as validators. In practice, they are something more important: the first operators of the aircraft. Before an airplane enters service, the flight test team is the first group to live with it day after day; planning missions, managing margins, handling failures, working around limitations, and discovering where assumptions meet reality. That perspective matters. Flight test does not just ask, “Can the aircraft do this once?” It asks, “Can this be done repeatedly, predictably, and safely?” This is where tension sometimes emerges. An honest operational review can feel uncomfortable when schedules are tight and certification milestones are visible. Findings that surface early may be perceived as obstacles rather than signals. But deferring that feedback rarely makes it go away... it simply pushes it later, when options are fewer and consequences are larger. Programs that treat flight test as an early operator gain something valuable: they learn how the aircraft will actually be used before that reality is locked in. That learning influences: - how margins are understood, - how procedures are written, - how limitations are framed, - and how certification confidence is built. Flight test is not a barrier to certification. It is a safeguard against discovering operational truth too late. The earlier an aircraft is seen through the eyes of its future operators, the more likely it is to enter service as a stable, trusted product, not just a certified one. #FlightTest  #AircraftDevelopment  #Aviation