The impact of delayed QA (Until we put shift-left testing into practice)

As a QA team, we’ve always known that testing early changes everything. But in the reality of fast-moving projects and shifting requirements, quality often ends up being a last-minute checkpoint, right when it has the most cost and the least room to act.

So we decided to adopt a shift-left testing approach.

Across several recent projects, we started embedding QA earlier in the cycle. Not as a token early handoff, but as a true shift-left QA strategy, one that reframes QA’s role from testing outcomes to influencing decisions. The impact was noticeable: better communication, clearer expectations, and fewer surprises down the line.

What changes when QA starts early

When QA happens at the end, it ends up being a bottleneck. There’s less time to test thoroughly, and even less time to fix issues, especially the ones that stem from vague requirements or mismatched assumptions.

Shift-Left testing helps prevent that. It’s about being proactive, not reactive. By getting involved early, we help shape the product instead of just testing the outcome. With this approach, we’ve been able to:

• Surface ambiguities in planning before a single line of code is written
• Ensures wireframes and stories are testable and aligned with user needs
• Reduces back-and-forth later by preventing issues

It’s all about shaping the work before it breaks, something core to shift-left testing principles.

Why this shift matters now

Development cycles have sped up. With agile, CI/CD, and constant iteration now the norm, testing at the end simply doesn’t fit anymore. QA has to keep pace and not by working faster at the end, but by embedding itself earlier in the process.

At the same time, expectations are higher than ever. A small bug can lead to churn, negative reviews, or long-term brand damage. Quality can’t be something you “check later.” It has to be built in from the start, exactly what the shift-left testing methodology enables.

There’s also been a shift in team mindset. More teams now understand that quality isn’t just QA’s job, it’s a shared responsibility. That shift has opened up space for QA to step in early and influence how things are built, not just tested.

And of course, we’ve all seen the chaos of late-stage QA: unclear requirements, last-minute bugs, rushed patches. The benefits of shifting left QA are clear; it helps reduce all that by catching issues before they snowball.

How Shift Left Testing became part of the conversation

The role of QA has changed. We’re no longer gatekeepers at the end of the line; rather, we’re enablers from the very beginning.

By being part of the process early, QA shifts from spotting bugs to preventing them altogether. This is the essence of what is shift left testing: ensuring quality is built into the product from day one, not inspected in at the end. It’s about asking the right questions before things go live, questions that surface blind spots in requirements, gaps in testability, or inconsistencies in design.

Our focus has evolved from executing tests to advocating for quality across the board. Reviewing user stories, flagging edge cases in design, mapping out test flows during planning, these aren’t “extras” anymore. They’re now essential parts of how we implement shift-left testing in our projects.

But mindset alone isn’t enough. For shift-left testing to work, it has to show up in how the project runs across planning, design, development, and delivery. That’s exactly what we’ve done. We didn’t just shift timelines. We shifted the way we work.

So what does that actually look like in practice?

Here’s how we’ve embedded quality deeper and earlier into the dev cycle and what made the difference.

How we made Shift-Left testing work on the ground

Shift-left testing works best when it isn’t treated like a process overlay. It works when the team buys into it. Here’s how we approached it:

Acceptance criteria as a foundation for quality

We started by making acceptance criteria (ACs) the anchor. For every story or task, ACs became the shared source of truth, not just for QA, but for devs, PMs, and even new teammates onboarding into the project. Clear ACs gave structure to dev handoffs, made QA cycles faster, and reduced back-and-forth.

With the ACs in place for each user story, verification can be done multiple times at various stages and in a more organized way. For example, the developer can verify their work by comparing it with the AC’s checklist before passing it on to the QA. This helps to boost the developers’ confidence in their work, a classic benefit of shifting left QA efforts.

Also, in certain situations, if the earlier QA member is replaced with another QA  engineer on the project, the ACs on the specific tickets help them to get an overall idea of the backlog item that needs to be tested.

Translating ACs into actionable outcomes

In one of our migration projects, our team had adopted the shift-left testing in the project life cycle. They have started with the basic step of writing Acceptance Criteria for each of the user stories. On the basis of each page of the website, the user stories were written for which the respective acceptance criteria have been curated.

Why collaboration with clients sharpens QA

To write effective acceptance criteria for project tasks, it’s important to clearly understand the problem, be involved in direct communication with the client, and collaborate well with the team. This upfront alignment is essential in any Shift-Left approach to QA.

For instance, in one of our migration projects, the QE was involved in direct client interactions from the project kickoff call. This immensely helped the QE to get better clarity on the task and expectations out of it. Thus, it helped in composing good quality Acceptance Criteria, which in turn ease the entire process.

On the flip side, there was another project, where the QE was not involved directly with the client calls, and thus he need to derive insights from the MoM and daily scrum calls and other project documents like Statement of Work (SOW), which makes it difficult to get proper understanding of the project deliverables.

Writing tests as we build

We also started pairing test writing with development. Not after, but alongside. Whether it was unit tests, integration flows, or tests became part of the build itself. We added internal APIs for cache resets and test data setup. Logging and toggles were introduced early, so testing didn’t rely on manual edge case creation and speeding up the overall feedback and release cycles.

Catching design issues before they reach dev

Early design reviews are where many issues get avoided before they ever make it to code.

When QEs are looped in early, as part of the shift-left testing process, they bring a practical lens to UI and UX decisions. It’s not about nitpicking design polish. It’s about surfacing the things that often break builds later: edge cases, unclear behaviors, and inconsistent interactions across breakpoints.

Spotting what’s missing before it blocks a sprint

In one project, we flagged a missing CTA button in the mobile view of an archive page. It was present on the desktop, but absent elsewhere, with no guidance on pagination or load behavior. Without early QA shift-left involvement, this would’ve led to confusion mid-sprint. Instead, we resolved it before a single line of code was written.

We’ve seen similar patterns: hover states not defined, validation messages unclear, misaligned mobile text, or missing assets like alternate logos. These are signals of uncertainty that would’ve slowed development.

Bringing QA perspective into UX and accessibility

In a site revamp, our QA team noticed poor scroll behavior in an FAQ sidebar and unclear hover interactions on headings. Rather than pass it along, we reviewed common UX patterns and suggested improvements early, avoiding rework later.

Shift-left testing also plays a critical role in catching accessibility issues early. Font size, color contrast, and responsive layout, all easier to solve in Figma than in final CSS. Raising these early kept us ahead of last-minute fixes.

Learn how you can make your website accessible and WCAG compliant.

When design logic needs clarity, QA asks first

Designs often include components like a “Load More” button that look simple but lack defined behavior. Is it an infinite scroll? Pagination? Modal overlay? These details are usually missed unless someone asks the right questions at the right time. That’s where early QA makes the difference.

Smarter regression testing from day one

Shift-left test automation plays a key role in catching problems before they reach production. When integrated early during staging or dev environment merges, it prevents regression issues from slipping through.

We’ve seen this work best when test runs are embedded into CI/CD pipelines. Automated checks during merges validate quality continuously, while scheduled daily or weekly test runs surface environmental issues that might otherwise get missed. Even small visual regressions like layout shifts or image misalignments get flagged quickly.

Where automation paid off: Our success story

In one of the client projects, the QE has pitched for the implementation of the test automation for the purpose of regression testing, which was initially out of scope. After having a discussion with the dev team and the client, the client was convinced of the shift-left test automation approach. From the implementation point of view, it might have seemed to be a costly investment, but in the long run, it actually turned out to be a lifesaver.

The devs don’t even need to look into GitHub for test reports because they were directly being sent to the Slack channel for better visibility. This automation workflow even streamlines the most critical problems, like Friday Deployments and better visibility on progress. This shift-left test automation workflow has improved the delivery time by about 60%.

In another project, there were some use cases like SEO checks for individual pages that needed to be carried out. For this scenario, instead of opting for some third-party tool like Semrush, the QE has created custom playwright automation scripts for testing the pages. This approach, in turn, has turned out to be cost cost-effective solution for the client as well.

Not every project needs automation

That said, shift-left test automation may not be beneficial for all types of projects. It totally depends on the scope of the project. Let’s try to understand with an example.

There was a migration project which has quite a large scope of work in terms of both frontend and backend. So, it might seem to be an actual case for test automation, but step back for a moment and think, “What if during multiple Sprints some major changes were made in both frontend and backend regularly or there chances of multiple change request coming from client even after finalizing the designs, which might in turn require extra efforts for modifying the test scripts as per changes.”

Thus, understanding the complexity and the stage at which the shift-left test automation needs to be implemented is the key to success.

It only works when the team is aligned

And of course, shift-left testing only works well when QA and engineering teams work closely. Shared tools, clear workflows, and regular check-ins (like in our daily scrums) are what keep it all moving smoothly. The value isn’t just in the scripts, it’s in how they’re embedded into the team’s rhythm.

What didn’t go smoothly?

Was it all smooth? Not quite. It took time and a mindset change.

Teams weren’t used to thinking in terms of testability. Stories came in too high-level, often without enough detail to write meaningful acceptance criteria. Some devs didn’t refer to ACs before handoff, which meant QA ended up flagging issues that could’ve been caught earlier. Resistance wasn’t loud, but it was there.

Even shift-left testing automation, too, was seen as overkill in the beginning. The upfront effort looked high, and the long-term benefit wasn’t always obvious to everyone involved.

We addressed it the way we do most things by making it part of the day-to-day. KT sessions, shared examples, and discussions in standups helped align teams over time. ACs became more actionable. Stories got scoped better. QA became part of upstream conversations, not just the last step before release.

In some cases, we had to work against long-established habits. Tickets were broad, broken down only at a feature level, which made it hard to write effective test cases or automate reliably. Getting to a place where we could shift-left QA required changing how work was scoped, discussed, and handed off.

And while test automation made sense for most projects, not everyone was on board initially. The perception of it being a high-cost investment took some unlearning. Our QE team spent time walking through the value: fewer regressions, shorter release cycles, better visibility. Eventually, that led to buy-in.

None of it was instant. But once teams saw the time they were saving downstream, the shift started to stick.

Lessons we carried forward

If there’s one thing we’ve learned is that it’s that shift-left testing isn’t a quick fix, it’s the adoption that takes time.

Getting teams to think in terms of testability, collaboration, and proactive QA isn’t a flip of a switch. It takes steady effort, training, and small wins that build confidence in the new way of working.

A few things that stood out:

• The shift-left approach to QA only works if teams understand the “why,” not just the “how.” Training is what turns process into practice.
• Without an agile mindset, the process stalls. Breaking work into smaller units is key because, without that, you can’t write meaningful ACs or test early.
• Shift-left test automation works best when scoped right. Not every project needs it end-to-end, but understanding where it fits makes all the difference.

The real impact: Effort, time, and cost

Shifting QA left wasn’t just a process change; it had a measurable impact on how we deliver.

Effort

In traditional cycles, QA joins late, often with limited context and even less influence. That leads to missed edge cases, repetitive back-and-forth with developers, and redundant cycles of rework. With shift-left testing in place from day one, that dynamic changes. Our team has a clear understanding of the scope and expectations early, and can contribute to shaping acceptance criteria that developers can validate against. The result? Less rework, clearer handoffs, and a 30–40% drop in redundant QA effort across the cycle.

Time

Late-stage QA means late discovery of issues, followed by rushed fixes, retesting, and delays. Even after internal QA, clients often spot issues during UAT that trace back to gaps in earlier phases.

With Shift-left testing in place, we detect issues earlier, often in the same sprint where they’re introduced. Test automation supports this further by enabling fast feedback loops during development. Overall, we’ve seen project timelines improve by up to 40% simply by reducing post-development churn.

Cost

Time and effort both translate directly to cost. By cutting down rework and accelerating delivery, the Shift-left testing approach has helped reduce overall project budgets by 10–20%. Timely handoffs, fewer blockers, and leaner QA cycles all contribute to smoother execution and real, recurring savings.

What our stakeholders had to say

In retrospectives, the feedback was clear: the shift-left approach to QA made a difference.

By involving QA early, teams avoided last-minute surprises and repetitive fixes. The process felt more aligned, the deliverables were stronger, and the overall effort at the tail end of delivery went down significantly. For most stakeholders, it wasn’t just about cleaner launches, it was about smoother collaboration across the board.

If you’re exploring ways to improve delivery velocity without compromising on quality, we’d be happy to share how we approach QA, right from day zero.

Reach out to start a conversation or ask us for a QA audit of your current setup.