System errors are inevitable in any software development project. They can range from minor bugs to major failures that affect the functionality, performance, or security of the system. How do you address system errors effectively and efficiently? In this article, we will explore some best practices and tips for dealing with system errors in the context of system development.
The first step to address system errors is to identify the error and its source. This means finding out what caused the error, when and where it occurred, and what the expected and actual outcomes were. You can use various tools and techniques to identify errors, such as debugging, logging, testing, tracing, or monitoring. Depending on the complexity and severity of the error, you may need to use different levels of detail and granularity to pinpoint the error.
The most crucial first step that I see many developers skip is to recreate the issue. Unless you recreate the issue on your own dev environment, any fixes done are guess-work and dangerous and can also lead you to think you solved the issue when you really didn’t. So first step, re-create the issue in your controlled environment and document how it is recreated. From there it should be simple to fix and to test to confirm it’s been resolved.
Deployed system needs to be monitored autonomously for anomalies. The detection can be as simple as violation of the systems expected behavior, which can be ascertained using defined rules
Monitoring hardware and infrastructure performance can give good indications and end users are invaluable to detect errors. When it comes to identifying the source of the error nothing beats a team of good system developers doing some detective work. Analyzing logs, using tracing, debugging and other technical methods and knowing when to use what. Discussing strategies, results and experiences.
Conducting Root Cause Analysis has been an effective way to uncover the issues. Moreover, asking the 5 why's will always get you to the bottom of the issue.
Before deploying any system life online, having a testing environment is key for a way forward for achieving our goals as developers. System errors always mark out where we have gone wrong and through it, we sometimes tend to change the concept of our systems, this is the advantage of system errors when it is identified. So, in the first place, study your system from one level to another, Mark out the successful parts and the errors, analyze your errors then find the best solution or option to fix those errors and do the round test again and again until you clarify that all errors are fixed. In brief, UAT is the best option to identify errors in the system so through it, we will be able to determine where we are & where we are going.
The next step to address system errors is to analyze the impact of the error on the system and its users. This means evaluating how the error affects the functionality, performance, or security of the system, and how it affects the user experience, satisfaction, or trust. You can use various metrics and indicators to measure the impact of errors, such as error rate, availability, response time, throughput, user feedback, or user behavior. Depending on the priority and urgency of the error, you may need to use different criteria and thresholds to assess the impact.
The impact is assessed with the product owner and depending on the severity, perhaps a dev team or user representatives. Unless the error only manifests in oversized logs or excessive memory usage etc. but to me that falls more into maintenance and upkeep than error handling.
From a personal perspective, there needs to be more emphasis on focus, detail (care what is being done), and error management. From the project lifecycle CI/CD pipeline process exists and when used properly will catch a lot of issues. My 2c+hst
The third step to address system errors is to resolve the error and restore the system to its normal state. This means fixing the error, testing the fix, and deploying the fix to the system. You can use various methods and tools to resolve errors, such as patches, updates, rollbacks, or recovery. Depending on the type and scope of the error, you may need to use different strategies and protocols to resolve the error.
This step needs collection, warehousing and retrival of data to measure and resolve. The resolution could be a system level change to make it better in a longer run or could be quciker resolution if the issue is resulting in downtime for customer. The short and long term resolution needs to thought through before reacting to the error in the system.
This is where the error handling is thrown into the development process. We know what’s wrong, we know how to fix it, let’s go. Depending on the size of the problem and what your dev process looks like, that’s it. Design, produce, test, publish.
The fourth step to address system errors is to prevent the error from recurring or spreading. This means identifying and eliminating the root cause of the error, improving the quality and reliability of the system, and implementing preventive measures and safeguards. You can use various practices and techniques to prevent errors, such as code review, refactoring, documentation, validation, verification, or encryption. Depending on the risk and frequency of the error, you may need to use different standards and policies to prevent the error.
The error idenfited shall be retrospected to provide the reason why the error was introduced in the system and which stage of development it was introduced into the system. The learning needs to refactored into the process of system design, development, validation and deployment. Typically the prevention is ensured by following guidelines created from earlier errors in the system.
Preventing errors is a never ending process. It takes technical skill, best practice and process evaluation, experience and creativity. You need to be able to balance risk and severity with cost of developer time and the risk of limiting both developers and users. A safe system is one that no one can access. It’s also a useless system.
The fifth step to address system errors is to learn from the error and improve the system development process. This means analyzing and documenting the error and its resolution, sharing and communicating the lessons learned, and applying the feedback and recommendations. You can use various frameworks and models to learn from errors, such as root cause analysis, post-mortem analysis, feedback loop, or continuous improvement. Depending on the complexity and novelty of the error, you may need to use different levels of learning and innovation to learn from the error.
Something that’s lacking in most organizations is experience and knowledge sharing. Retrospective reviews are great and can spread the experiences from one team to the rest and it can also help involved developers vent their experiences and make the error handling process better.
The sixth step to address system errors is to review the error and its handling. This means evaluating and measuring the effectiveness and efficiency of the error identification, analysis, resolution, prevention, and learning processes. You can use various methods and tools to review errors, such as audits, reviews, reports, or metrics. Depending on the goals and objectives of the system development project, you may need to use different criteria and indicators to review the error.
In my opinion, you can’t learn from the error without reviewing it and there’s no point in reviewing it if your goal is anything else than to learn from it.
Share the story with others, so they can learn from your experience. Pass things on to younger, less experienced people around you and lift them up with you. Consider others.