How do you prioritize and track defect resolution?

1 Defect prioritization

Defect prioritization is the process of assigning a level of urgency and importance to each defect, based on its impact, severity, frequency, and risk. This helps to determine which defects should be fixed first and which can be deferred or ignored. Additionally, it aids in allocating resources, estimating timelines, and communicating expectations to developers and clients. Common criteria for defect prioritization include business impact (i.e. how much it affects the product or service's functionality, usability, or performance), customer impact (i.e. how many users are affected and how much it affects their satisfaction or loyalty), technical impact (i.e. how complex or difficult it is to fix the defect and how much it affects the codebase's stability, security, or maintainability), and compliance impact (i.e. how much it violates legal, regulatory, or contractual requirements). Based on these criteria, you can assign a priority level to each defect using various methods such as high/medium/low/trivial or a numerical scale from 1-5 or a color code like red/yellow/green/blue. It's essential that the priority level is documented and agreed upon by all stakeholders involved in the defect resolution process.

2 Defect tracking

Defect tracking is the process of recording, monitoring, and reporting the status and progress of each defect from the moment it is identified until it is resolved. This helps to keep track of the defect lifecycle, identify trends and patterns, measure quality metrics, and provide feedback and transparency to the developers and the clients. Logging a defect should include a unique identifier, a descriptive title, a detailed description, a priority level, a severity level, a category or type, a source or origin, a reporter or owner, and a date and time of occurrence. Assigning the defect to a responsible person or team should be done with notification and acknowledgement. Resolving includes updating the defect status and progress in the system, as well as documenting the root cause, solution, test cases, and results of resolution. Verifying requires updating status and feedback in the system as well as documenting verification method, criteria, and outcome. Once verified and accepted by stakeholders, closing involves marking resolved or fixed in the system as well as archiving or moving to historical database for future reference or analysis.

3 Defect tracking tools

Defect tracking tools are software applications or platforms that help you manage and automate the defect prioritization and tracking process. These tools can create, update, assign, monitor, report, and analyze defects in a centralized and standardized way. Additionally, they can integrate with other tools, like testing tools, development tools, project management tools, or communication tools to facilitate collaboration and coordination among stakeholders. Examples of defect tracking tools include Jira, which is popular and customizable; Bugzilla, which is free and open source; and MantisBT, which is free and web-based. All of these offer features such as email notifications, advanced search, attachments, comments, charts, and graphs to enhance the defect management experience. Furthermore, they support various workflows, fields, filters, dashboards, reports, plugins, roles-based access, custom fields, filters and integrations to suit different needs.

4 Defect reporting

Defect reporting is the process of communicating and presenting the defect information and data to stakeholders in a clear and concise way. It helps you inform and update the stakeholders about the defect status and progress, the defect quality and performance, and the defect resolution and improvement. Additionally, defect reporting allows you to solicit feedback from stakeholders to enhance your defect management process and outcomes. Common formats for defect reporting include a defect summary report, a defect detail report, and a defect notification. A defect summary report is a brief overview of the defects, such as the number, priority, severity, status, and distribution. A defect detail report is more comprehensive and includes information such as the identifier, title, description, priority, severity, category, source, reporter, assignee, date/time, status/progress, root cause/solution/test cases/results/verification method/criteria/outcome/feedback/comments. Lastly, a defect notification is timely and specific with an alert or reminder of a defect occurrence or change. It typically includes the identifier, title, description, priority, severity, status, and action required.

5 Defect management best practices

Defect management is a critical part of quality assurance that helps ensure defects are identified, fixed, and verified quickly and effectively. It also contributes to product quality, customer satisfaction, team productivity, and collaboration. To get the most out of defect management, you should define and document your process and policies, choose a suitable defect tracking tool, establish a consistent workflow, assign roles and responsibilities, provide training and support, and monitor and measure performance. Doing so will help you identify areas for improvement and ensure your defect management process is as effective as possible.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?