“Shift Left” means do it earlier in the flow, and bake it into the flow. “It” can be quality, controls, accountability, risk…
“Quality” means fit for purpose, free of defects, compliant with requirements. (It’s a myth that quality means endlessly better).
Quality should not be something that is done at the end of the flow by some third party. We should do it earlier, in the work, as part of the flow. Bake it into the work system: everybody is concerned with quality at every step of the work. Ideally, we don’t need to check for quality at the end because we know it is there. The function of those responsible for quality is then not to test it at the end, but instead to:
- build awareness of quality considerations.
- teach and coach
- build tools and automation to allow others to ensure quality.
- monitor and sample the workflow to detect quality.
- identify improvements to quality.
Or risk and impact assessment can be done by the builders themselves, who self-certify.
Or we automate the control, e.g. credit checking; or scanning software code.