Pro-active Quality = Shift Left and Right

Statement

Quality practices are applied throughout the lifecycle from planning to production.

What this means in practice

Teams build in quality early, learn continuously, and verify outcomes in real usage.

• Feedback is delivered continuously, not deferred to the end.

• Defects are prevented by the team critically reviewing ideas, code, and practices.

• Feedback on whether we “built the product right” is gathered in production, not just during initial delivery.

• When an issue is resolved, safeguards are added to reduce the chance it reoccurs.

Why this matters

Shifting quality left and right reduces surprises and improves outcomes.

• Fewer support incidents and escaped defects reach customers.

• Faster iteration is possible because teams learn earlier and more reliably.

• Shared context and clear feedback reduce misalignment.

• Teams can take sensible risks with confidence.

• Customer and team satisfaction improves because the focus stays on value.

Practices that meet this principle

• Run automated tests as early as possible as part of the delivery pipeline. Ideally, automated tests act as guardrails for development.

• Hold story and test case huddles.

• Participate in user acceptance testing sessions.

• Use regular improvement time (for example, “Maintenance Mondays”).

• Use automation to accelerate feedback loops, improve reliability, and handle repetitive tasks.

• Monitor production health.

• Use alerts and dashboards in production, and where appropriate in other environments.

• Use clear Definition of Ready and Definition of Done and enforced

• Track useful metrics such as escaped defects, time to detect and fix, flaky test rates, and production performance.

Validation

A project meets this principle when:

• Quality activities occur in planning, build, test, and production.

• Automated checks run early in the pipeline and provide timely feedback.

• Production signals (logs, incidents, monitoring) are actively used as quality feedback.

• Resolved issues result in preventative safeguards (tests, monitors, runbooks, or process changes).

• Definitions of Ready and Done are used consistently.

• Lower number of defects

Potential blockers

• Limited automation coverage or slow pipelines reducing early feedback.

• Lack of production observability (logs, dashboards, alerts).

• Unclear ownership of quality practices across the team.

• Insufficient time allocated for maintenance and improvement work.