Balancing bug fixes and new features in Agile product engineering. How do you prioritize effectively?

The implementation of new features and bug fixing in an agile environment requires clear planning and effective prioritization. A well-defined and measured roadmap should balance the development of new features with bug corrections, always focusing on the value delivered. Understanding the team's capacity and ensuring the team is complete, with critical roles like QA, is essential to avoid bug accumulation and maintain the quality of deliveries. Continuous communication and well-grounded prioritization ensure efficiency in the agile process and high-quality outcomes.

To deal with bugs, we need to apply one of the prioritization techniques, such as GUT (Gravity, Urgency and Trend). This is because a serious error may not be urgent depending on the trend. Example: An error that occurred on Black Friday caused a drop in sales. As serious as it may be, it may not be urgent. What will happen if we do not correct this error quickly? Perhaps nothing, because the impact of this error will only happen again the following year, on Black Friday.

From my experience i can tell that there is no one fit solution for this situation- But a product owner can prioritise the defect and new features as per the Business Value and the impact on customer. Another option is to understand the root cause of many defects if it is impacting the development of new features, the team might need to focus on built in quality

- Create a product Roadmap which will include all items related to New Features and Bug fixes - Define Impact Criteria Based on Organizational Strategy - Practice effort estimation of projects related to new feature projects - First work on the delivery of high impact with less time to market items related to new features - Add bug fixes in each release and treat them as runtime issues. Don't consider them as full fledge projects.

In Agile, prioritization involves balancing bug fixes and new feature development, using the backlog to ensure the most important tasks are addressed first. Regularly reviewing this list helps focus on what truly matters, considering the impact on user experience and the product's goals.

Effective prioritization in Agile involves weighing immediate customer impact against long-term product goals. Focusing on user-reported issues first maintains customer satisfaction, while ensuring new features drive product evolution. Using a combination of customer feedback, severity of the bugs, and the business value of features helps maintain a balance between technical debt and innovation.

Quando a organiza??o pensa no cliente como um ser humano, e busca compreender toda a complexidade da rotina deste cliente para considerar criar ou melhorar as solu??es de um produto, isso justifica a existência da empresa. A comunica??o com os clientes é algo que, quando estruturado pode aumentar o valor percebido. Priorizar bugs ou novos recursos ouvindo o cliente impacta diretamente a confian?a. O uso de ferramentas como matriz impacto/esfor?o, MoSCoW, NPS e KPIs para balancear, focando no que agrega mais valor, alinha os objetivos do cliente com o produto.

Effectively balancing bug fixes and new features in Agile product engineering requires an approach that integrates technical debt reduction directly into the development cycle. I prioritized addressing technical debt alongside new feature development by embedding tech debt reduction tasks within actual sprint cycles. This approach ensured that my teams tackled critical refactoring and bug fixes without neglecting innovation. My teams could then deliver high-impact features while systematically improving system stability. This balanced approach boosted product quality and maintained the engineering velocity needed for development releases.

Omprego de dívidas técnicas s?o excenciais para o time to marketing. Papel excêncial do arquiteto e todo time na cadeia de desenvolvimento é mensurar o impacto dessas dívidas e sempre analisar se o emprego da mesma n?o incorre em problemas que eventualmente s?o nocivos para o produto, podendo até resultar ou contribuir para um eventual fracasso. Algumas formas de garantir que dívidas técnicas n?o tornem-se "contornos" eternos é utilizando ADRs, documenta??es de especifica??o, registrando cards no backlog e deixar um plano de a??o para seu pagamento disponível. O grande segredo para que dívidas técnicas sejam estratégias saudáveis dentro do projeto é manter o alinhamento com stakeholder e deixar claro os ganhos e possibilidades ao sana-las.

No ato de gerenciar equipes de desenvolvimento, n?o s?o duas ou três atividades prioritárias que um PO, Agile Coach/Master ou TechLead têm, s?o várias, e dependendo do tamanho da equipe e da quantidade de stakeholders isso pode ser algo profundamente complexo. Assim, tomar decis?es para "abaixar o fogo" sem apagar ele por completo podem custar caro, especialmente quando o assunto é gest?o de custos x prazo. é sempre válida a provoca??o sobre nossa compreens?o dos papéis e responsabilidades que este produto assume, uma vez que no mercado ou até internamente se pode "plugar" solu??es complementares em nossos produtos para n?o precisar reinventar a roda.

Aprendi nos últimos anos algumas coisas sobre essa rela??o entre bugs, novos recursos e o mercado: - Sempre para a empresa existir, nosso foco é sobre a lucratividade que este desenvolvimento criará; - N?o precisamos fazer tudo com as próprias m?os, mas podemos criar produtos que conversem com o que o mercado já produz; - Primeiro fazemos um match entre o direcionamento estratégico do negócio e a voz do cliente, depois avaliamos se somos nós que vamos criar a solu??o 100% em casa, ou se vamos procurar parceiros.

Release planning is of supreme importance, even if we have sprints planned and have buffer for bugs, the release needs to be happening in time to address the sensitivity of issues and meeting the stakeholder timelines. One effective prioritization metric that can be used is Business Impact which states that if there are any alternative ways to fix the issue, if not the Business Impact for such bugs/stories would be maximum on the scale thus bringing it up in our priority queue and helping plan the sprints and releases.

This depends. The first priority is to stay in business. If a feature will get a significant sale then that could be the route to go. If you have a buggy product because you dont prioritise bug fixing then your feature development will slow down due to not knowing if you intriduced a bug or if it was there latently or actively. If business pressures are light and devs need to push back on artificial pressures then bug fixing is my choice if I can persuade management of its validity.

Risk management in testing is crucial for ensuring product quality within agile engineering. It involves assessing the risks of both unresolved defects and new features. From a testing perspective, it's essential to evaluate the severity and likelihood of errors affecting users and prioritize resolving critical issues. Likewise, new features should be tested to minimize the risk of introducing new problems or failing to meet user expectations. Effective risk management helps prioritize work that improves product reliability while mitigating potential negative impacts.