In this episode of the Vernon and Richard show, the hosts engage in light-hearted banter about football before diving into a deep discussion on QA, QE, and testing. They explore the concept of 'shift left' in software development, comparing its application in agile versus waterfall methodologies. The conversation shifts to the evolving roles of QA and QE in the context of AI's impact on the industry, emphasizing the importance of task analysis and building a quality culture within teams. The episode concludes with reflections on managing expectations in QA roles and the future of jobs in the field.

00:00 - Intro

00:48 - Welcome and "Hey" (may contain traces of ⚽️)

04:45 - Olly's first question: Does shift left lend itself more to waterfall (than other methodologies)?

14:41 - Olly's second question: Does this limit how much agile can be used? Is there potentially a new methodology that can emerge from this?

22:31 - Olly's third question (remixed by Rich a little): "...is it more now a case of making people aware that they can, should be considering things ahead of development?"

34:24 - Olly's fourth question: How far can you shift-left before it becomes overstepping?

51:53 - Olly's... which question is this now?! Next question! That works!: Where does the QA role end?

Links to stuff we mentioned during the pod:

04:26 - Olly Fairhall
- Olly's LinkedIn
- Here's a link to what Olly sent us
04:45 - Waterfall (in software development)
- Wikipedia article about the history of the term
- This article goes into a little more detail about the different phases and characteristics of the model
07:29 - Dan Ashby's (yes DAN'S!) famous diagram is part of his often cited "Continuous Testing" post
07:50 - For folks who don't understand that reference, it's... taken (🥁) scene from the movie Taken
08:10 - Rich's Whiteboard used to get a lot more love😞
22:31 - Olly's questions and thoughts that are guiding our conversation. Thanks Olly!
44:12 - The book "Who Not How" by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy
46:33 - Elisabeth Hendrickson
- Get Elisabeth's excellent book Explore It!
- Elisabeth's LinkedIn
46:49 - Alan Page
- Alan's newsletter
- Alan and Brent's podcast
- Alan's LinkedIn
51:53 - Kelsey Hightower
- Kelsey did a Q&A at Cloud Native PDX and you can listen to the question and answer I was trying to describe here.
- I urge you to listen to the whole thing. Kelsey is an excellent orator, storyteller, and all-around human ❤️
55:33 - Rob Sabourin
- My quick Perplexity search for Rob's public material on Task Analysis
- Rob's Linkedin
56:59 - Vernon's newsletter "Yeah But Does it Work?!"
- The issue mentioned is called "What Is The Vaughn Tan Rule and How Does It Impact Testing?" and talks about where we might start with unbundling

Shifting Left: Agile vs. Waterfall in QA