The Shift-Right label is that more and more testing (and checking) can happen on the live application in production. Some call it monitoring, some call it Testing in the Wild. It is a very wild idea for some people and some contexts #YMMV. It may very well be the best way of testing in some contexts.
Once I consulted on a network stabilization and delivery optimization project for a consumer bank. They had many issues in their production environment… I strongly advocated that they did test controlled and structured in production on the network changes and other operational activities. (I have talked about “How to Test in IT operations“ at Nordic Testing Days 2016). More on testing during IT deliveries in Shift-Deliver.
Shift-Right is trend that people have covered well before me, here are some pointers:
- Dan Ashby: Continuous Testing in DevOps
- Alan Page: Stop Writing Automation
- Laurent Py at Agile Testing Days 2015: SHIFT LEFT AND SHIFT RIGHT: THE TESTING SWING
- Lanette Creamer:
- 8 Reasons to Shift Testing Right
- Testing and monitoring in production – your QA is incomplete without it
The key is really as Alan puts it “testers should try to learn more from the product in use” and with that comes the tools of Google Canary builds, NetFlix Chaos Monkeys etc.
This trend goes along with Shift-Coach, Shift-Left and Shift-Deliver discussed separately. Initially I considered shift-right to be regarding consulting, but after hearing Declan O’Riordan at DSTB 2016 I realized that shift-right was the right label for test in production, testing in the wild etc.
Similar posts regarding things in the wild: Bugs Happens, The Kcal bug, Tradition is a choice and Can you see beyond the visible.
Complexity is a Matter of Perspective 