Defect triage in software testing: everything you need to know (2024)

Defect triage in software testing: everything you need to know (1)

Mislav Stanic

Author

11 minutes

Reading time

Development Category

Even if your software development team follows the best practices and tries to produce high-quality code, bugs and app defects are often inevitable.

Dealing with these issues can be difficult, especially if you don’t have a good strategy in place. You may end up confused about where to start, stuck deciding which defects are critical and which aren’t.

If you are looking for an effective solution for handling defects in your application, read on.

This article will cover everything you need to know about defect triage—a collaborative process that will help your organization sort and fix bugs more successfully.

Table of Contents

What is defect triage

Defect triage, also known as bug triage, borrows the method used in the medical field for categorizing patients—the term triagebeing the French word for sorting.

During a medical triage, doctors quickly examine patients taken into a hospital to determine which ones are most ill and must receive emergency treatment.

Patients are categorized based on the severity of their illness into emergency cases, priority cases, and non-urgent cases.

In software testing, this concept is used in a similar way.

Similarly to how doctors determine priority according to their patients’ illness, your organization’s leaders and specialists can determine which defects need to be addressed immediately and which can be postponed based on several criteria.

This process is conducted in a defect triage meeting—a meeting where defects are analyzed, sorted and their resolution is planned out.

A defect triage can be split into three steps:

Defect triage in software testing: everything you need to know (2)

The first step, defect review, is performed by examining the defects—looking at all the found problems and organizing them appropriately.

It means checking all of the current defectsto determine how to manage them best and plan out their resolution effectively.

This step can address whether the defects in question are actual bugs or whether they are false detections, poorly designed features, or antifeatures.

After the first step comes evaluating the chosen defects through defect assessment.

Defect triage in software testing: everything you need to know (3)
Defect triage in software testing: everything you need to know (4)

Bug & crash reporting tool for mobile apps.

Try for free

Here, defects are ranked on a list—the most damaging ones being at the top and the least harmful ones at the bottom of the list.

You can even remove some issues from the list—low-severity bugs that don’t disrupt the app’s functionality which can be addressed later.

The final step is assigning someone to fix the bugs that the meeting participants decided are a priority.

This step is called defect assignment, which consists of assigning defects to the correct departments or specialists, so they can solve the defects before the app or update are released.

We can summarize the steps in defect triage with the following four questionsraised and answered during this process.

Defect triage in software testing: everything you need to know (5)

As you can see, the questions posed at defect triage meetings are carefully planned with the sole purpose of efficiently running through a list of bugs or issues in your software, determining their severity, and deciding on the steps for fixing them.

Now that you know what defect triage is, we can move on to why this practice is important.

Why is defect triage important

Defect triage is an effective way to resolve disruptive defects in your software through careful planning and coordination of multiple departments.

Various stakeholders and specialists conduct defect triage meetings to align their objectives and priorities with regard to the issues in the software, and to come to a mutual agreement on the way forward.

This coordination is especially important when working with limited time and resources and it becomes even more crucial as your application scales up.

Usually, defect triage is best utilizedin large, complex projects where many issues are present, which teams must resolve before a new app release.

In large-scale applications, defects will likely be detected more often,with various severity levels that can be hard to organize by any department alone.

Defects can pile up, and your teams may become overwhelmed, not knowing what to tackle first.

Performing defect triage can remedy this, as bugs are sorted according to severity.

Defect triage in software testing: everything you need to know (6)

You can think of severity as the degree of impact a defect has on the functioning of the application or some of its individual features.

Prioritizing defects based on severity can be helpful when resources are low as your team can focus most of their efforts on the critical and major problems.

Defect triage is also essential in modern software development methodologies like Agile.

As you may know, Agile teams work in sprints—short timeframes of around one to four weeks, where teams work to complete a predefined amount of work.

Defect triage meetings can be conducted before sprints, as they can help direct development teams on which issues to focus on and which they can postpone.

Defect triage in software testing: everything you need to know (7)

As mentioned, in defect triage meetings, app defects are prioritizedbased on their severity, risk, rate of occurrence, etc.

This allows developers to focus on the most damaging defects in the current sprint and postpone less important ones.

For example, a defect that causes your app to crash should be addressed in the current sprint, while an issue that disrupts a minor feature can be taken care of in other sprints—before the app’s release.

On the other hand, a minor cosmetic issue can be postponed even further, as it doesn’t affect the app significantly.

Defect triage works well in Agile as it facilitates efficiency. Dealing with high-priority issues quickly during sprints and managing less critical ones so developers can fix them before major releases.

So, through defect triage meetings, you can help your organization prioritize defects more effectively, saving time and resources and speeding up your releases.

Who participates in defect triage

There are no strict guidelines about who can and can’t join a defect triage meeting, as it varies among organizations.

However, some employees are typically required to be in the meetings as they are responsible for large parts of the project, and their input is highly valuable.

The three mandatory participantsare:

Defect triage in software testing: everything you need to know (8)

As the person responsible for the entire project, the project manager always participates in defect triage meetings so they can be informed about the progress of handling defects.

Project managers can also assist the other meeting members in tracking and prioritizing defects and sharing their business-related perspectives on the bugs and issues.

One of their most important roles is to act as a mediator between the other participants if any dispute arises.

As the person responsible for the project, they can make necessary decisions if it’s challenging to come to a mutually acceptable solution on any given issue.

The test leadwill usually be the person in charge of scheduling the defect triage meetings and sending out invites to other organization members.

They will give presentations on each detected issue in the application so that the other triage members can understand the problem well and make informed decisions on prioritization.

The role of the development team lead, along with the test lead, is to explain the potential damage all of the defects can pose—discussing the risks and complexity of each problem thoroughly.

After you inform all other participants about these matters, you should help prioritize the defects and assign them to the appropriate teams.

Besides the participants who are obliged to be there, other specialists are encouraged to join the meetings and share their input—sharing their perspectives on the issues.

The list of possible participants can be the following:

Defect triage in software testing: everything you need to know (9)

All participants can provide valuable insight into the importance of the defects they come across, as different roles can view priority differently.

For example, a tester can define priority according to the impact a bug had on testing—a blocker-level bug, for example, can prevent further testing until it’s resolved.

The project manager and business analyst can decide the priority based on whether the issue will delay the release of the app update and how it would affect the company as a whole.

So, a bug that is regarded as low priority by the test team can be critical for business leaders or developers.

In defect triage meetings, participants can discuss the problems and exchange opinions, come to an agreement more effectively, and decide upon a line of action that is acceptable to all.

What happens during a defect triage meeting

A defect triage meeting is a process during which participants sort out all of the defects that were found in the software according to urgency.

There are usually three phasesto a defect triage meeting:

Defect triage in software testing: everything you need to know (10)

The pre-meeting stageis where the testers and the test lead will usually prepare the presentation of defects by assigning them to appropriate categories and writing out detailed descriptions for each one.

They will also verify each bug’s assigned severity and priorityto check if it’s correct.

These activities serve the purpose of creating a report which will showcase all defects and make this information easily accessible to the other triage members when the meeting begins.

During the meeting, you and other participants can start by resolving any pending issues from previous triage meetings.

After this is concluded, members can start reviewing the test lead’s report and evaluate bug severity and priority, updating them where necessary.

Evaluating the report will enable participants to decide on the priority of the known defects—which ones to tackle first and which ones can be postponed for further app releases.

The report might look something like this:

Defect triage in software testing: everything you need to know (11)

Along with basic fields like defect description, priority, and severity, these reports can also include the assigned teams or specialists for each bug, estimated and actual times for fixing the bug, as well as other relevant notes—such as the root causes of the bug and defect solutions.

When the project is in its early stages, developers can tackle even the lowest priority bugs, but as the app scales and deadlines start approaching, prioritizing will become crucial so teams can know which issues to handle immediately and which to put on hold.

Triage teams can decide on how to categorize the defects during this meeting based on the severity and priority of the defect in question.

There are three commonly used categorieswhich defects are sorted into:

Defect triage in software testing: everything you need to know (12)

This classification differentiates between the critical issues that need to be addressed before release, problems that are pertinent but can be fixed later on, and issues that are either not important enough to be fixed or are just badly designed features and not defects.

The end of defect triage meetings is usually left for assigning which teams or individuals will tackle the defects based on the bug status and priority.

In the post-meeting stage, the test lead will usually share the meeting minutes in a written record—this document should contain every vital detail and decision that participants made during the meetings.

It will usually include the number of participants, discussed issues and responses to these issues, and the final decisions made to resolve each defect—as well as the teams or individuals tasked to solve the problems.

As you can see, defect triage meetings cover many different activities and can seem confusing, but by following the three phases step by step, this process can become manageable.

And the benefit of dealing with defects more effectively will definitely be worth it.

Conclusion

With this article, we have given you a comprehensive overview of what defect triage is, its importance in handling software issues effectively, and the structure of defect triage meetings.

This practice can seem quite daunting at first glance, with its many phases and activities, the participants involved, and their roles in meetings.

But, with proper preparation and with the help of the information in this article, you can start organizing successful defect triage meetings.

Hopefully, we’ve convinced you of the benefits of using this practice to deal with defects, and we recommend implementing it in your organization if you aren’t doing so already.

About Shake

Shake is a bug and crash reporting tool for mobile apps. It helps developers solve reported issues in their app faster, without having to bother the user.

Related articles

Or explore all articles

Defect triage in software testing: everything you need to know (13)

4 tips for maximizing in-app feedback

Defect triage in software testing: everything you need to know (14)

Bug fixes vs product features: what to prioritize

Meet your favorite bug and crash reporting tool.

Try for free

Defect triage in software testing: everything you need to know (15)

Add to app in minutes

Defect triage in software testing: everything you need to know (16)

Doesn’t affect app speed

Defect triage in software testing: everything you need to know (17)

GDPR & CCPA compliant

Defect triage in software testing: everything you need to know (2024)

FAQs

Defect triage in software testing: everything you need to know? ›

Defect triage is a process where each bug is prioritized based on its severity, frequency, risk, etc. Triage term is used in the Software testing / QA to define the severity and priority of new defects.

What is the defect triage process in software testing? ›

The defect triage process involves holding a session with a triage team, which includes stakeholders like Product Manager, Testing Manager/Lead, Development Manager/Lead, and Business Analysts. The goal of this team is to evaluate the defects, assess them, and attach priorities and severity level.

What is defect triage job description? ›

Their main aim is to communicate and discuss risks that are involved and complexity level of each and every defect. They also assign or allocate different tasks and work to different members of triage team to fix errors. They also update solution of each defect and note missing data or add any data for triage team.

What is the test triage process? ›

Test triage is a process that helps identify, prioritize and resolve test case issues in a systematic way. Ranking issues by severity, customer impact, complexity, frequency, and other key factors, helps development teams concentrate on what's most important.

How to conduct bug triage? ›

The Bug Triage Process Steps
  1. Bug Submission. The bug triage process begins when you report a bug. ...
  2. Initial Assessment. During this stage, your testing team reviews the bug report. ...
  3. Severity and Priority Assignment. Understanding how to assign the right severity and priority levels is crucial. ...
  4. Assignment to Developers.
Sep 14, 2023

What is the difference between debug and triage? ›

Triage is commonly known as the initial phase of debug where a large set of failures are analyzed and grouped together based on the likelihood of sharing the same root cause.

What are the three types of defects in software testing? ›

Types Of Software Errors in Software Testing

Software bugs are classified into three types: Software Defects by its Nature. Software Defects by its Priority. Software Defects by its Severity.

What are the 5 levels of triage? ›

In general, the triage system has five levels:
  • Level 1 – Immediate: life threatening.
  • Level 2 – Emergency: could become life threatening.
  • Level 3 – Urgent: not life threatening.
  • Level 4 – Semi-urgent: not life threatening.
  • Level 5 – Non-urgent: needs treatment when time permits.

What are the steps of the triage process? ›

Triage of patients involves looking for signs of serious illness or injury. These emergency signs are connected to the Airway - Breathing - Circulation/Consciousness - Dehydration and are easily remembered as ABCD.

What are the three categories of triage? ›

The practice of medical triage began during war. The first instances of triage are believed to have occurred in the late 1700s with Napoleon's military. The chief surgeon for the military developed a system of sorting casualty victims into categories of immediate, urgent, and not urgent.

What is defect life cycle? ›

A defect/bug life cycle is the sequence of steps a bug or defect goes through from its identification to its resolution in software development.

What is triage in agile? ›

Bug triage is an agile and scrum process used to prioritize, track, and evaluate bugs in software development. It is a critical component of software quality assurance and involves stakeholders coming together to identify, categorize, and assign action items to address the bugs reported.

What is the difference between a bug and a defect? ›

Difference between bug and defect

A bug is a problem in the software that causes it to behave unexpectedly or incorrectly. A defect is a deviation from the expected behaviour or requirement of the software. Bugs are often associated with issues in the code, such as logical errors, syntax mistakes, or runtime problems.

What is defect detection in software testing? ›

Defect Detection Efficiency is also known as Defect Detection Percentage is the percentage of the total defects detected during the testing phase of the software. The formula to calculate DDE is: DDE = (Number of Defects Detected in a Phase / Total Number of Defects) x 100 % All-in-one Hiring OS.

What is defect priority in software testing? ›

Defect Priority, also called Bug Priority, is the degree of impact a defect has on the business. The higher the defect's impact on business, the higher its priority. Defect priority also determines the order in which developers fix bugs. A product manager determines the priority of the defect.

Top Articles
Latest Posts
Recommended Articles
Article information

Author: Virgilio Hermann JD

Last Updated:

Views: 5638

Rating: 4 / 5 (61 voted)

Reviews: 84% of readers found this page helpful

Author information

Name: Virgilio Hermann JD

Birthday: 1997-12-21

Address: 6946 Schoen Cove, Sipesshire, MO 55944

Phone: +3763365785260

Job: Accounting Engineer

Hobby: Web surfing, Rafting, Dowsing, Stand-up comedy, Ghost hunting, Swimming, Amateur radio

Introduction: My name is Virgilio Hermann JD, I am a fine, gifted, beautiful, encouraging, kind, talented, zealous person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.