Testing has often been seen as the final stage of creating an application. Since we weren’t shifting testing left as much as we do today, a great deal of work was thrown on the testing team at the very end of an exhausting project cycle. But testers shouldn’t be seen as the last line of defense.

It would be short-sighted for any project manager not to consider the potential risks in the project and not to evaluate and continue re-evaluating what can go wrong. But there's a difference between planning for risk and falling victim to catastrophic thinking—focusing on unlikely or irrational worst-case scenarios.

The entire agile team needs to be involved in a continuous process of identifying ways to simplify work, right up until a story is complete. Smaller stories ensure that development work is rapid and trackable. Mitch Goldstein details how to focus on breaking stories down into a more estimable, “digestible” size.