What is Defect Triage in Agile?

Triage is a medical term. The process of immediately assessing patients who are brought to a hospital to determine which ones are the most dangerously ill and need to be treated first is known as triage. Patients will be divided into groups according to the severity of their illnesses, and the doctors will give priority care to those who are gravely ill. Individuals with non-critical illnesses are given lower priority status and receive care after extremely ill patients.

In Software Development also we use same terminology i.e Defect triage. But what exactly this defect triage is in software development, is it necessary or not, how development team deals with it etc. In this article we will cover all to give you more idea about defect triage in Agile. Let’s start.

Brief About Defect Triage

Defect triage, often known as bug triage, is frequently used in software testing. It is necessary to describe the faults' importance and seriousness. The severity of a problem is determined by how much it affects the creation or use of the component program that's being tested. Priority is the sequence in which a flaw must be corrected or resolved. Defect triage is essentially a method that aims to rebalance the process, which is typically problematic for the test team due to a lack of necessary resources. Defects are typically prioritized in defect triage based only on their severity, likelihood of recurrence, risk, etc.

Triage is a word that means "sorting" in French. Typically, testers will first find a flaw or problem before rating its risk, the likelihood of recurrence, and severity. Defect triage is used to help address and resolve as many flaws as possible based only on the severity and importance of the issues when there are more defects than testers can verify them.

Why is Defect Triage Necessary?

There are always some ifs and buts present whenever the testing team reports a defect. In order to work on the "why" aspect of it, the developer(s) has to understand the "what" defect and "when" that problem was detected.

Defects take significantly longer and need more work to discover and correct the root cause if they are not correctly recorded, mapped, and reported.

It is important to remember that numerous faults can be reported at once, thus it is crucial to decide which one to address first based on functional and commercial requirements.

The triage of defects enables the project team to prioritize and prioritize the severity of the errors. They can quickly and easily address the problem because they have access to all the necessary information concerning the flaw. The time between reporting the fault and its resolution is drastically shortened if triaging is done properly.

A general guide for Triaging

• The stated flaws have all been examined.

• Every accepted flaw has been given priority.

• All faults that are approved come with a level of severity, and defects that are denied the need to have plausible reasons for the testing team.

• Each flaw has been allocated to the proper owner, person, or group.

• Root cause analysis has been performed for each acceptable defect.

Defect Triage Meeting: What is It?

Each flaw or problem is discussed in detail at this meeting. In this meeting, the severity and importance of flaws and bugs are decided. This meeting's primary objective is to assess, recognize, assign, or provide a remedy for any faults or problems. The following questions also come up during the meeting −

• Is the bug real or not?

• Is the error repeatable or not?

• Does the flaw warrant repair or not?

• When should I correct a flaw or bug?

Defect Triage Meetings, as the name implies, are project gatherings where errors or bugs are classified into several categories. Here are these categories −

Fixing Flaws Immediately

This category includes any flaws that must be fixed right away or will result in more harm than they are worth. To correct and address flaws that fall within this category, there are numerous resources accessible.

Flaws to be Fixed Later

This category includes all flaws that are less harmful than others and don't require immediate correction or resolution. Further repairs can be made to these flaws.

We can't fix These Flaws

This category includes any flaws that don't harm the system in any way and don't need to be addressed or resolved.

The frequency of defects meetings often depends on the state of the project. Defect Triage Meeting Frequency is determined by a number of factors, some of which are listed below −

• Project Timeline

• The overall number of system flaws affect team members' availability and schedules

• Mission Health

Purpose of Defect Triage Meeting

Defect triage meetings in the process of software development are used to rank defects according to their seriousness, risk of recurrence, etc. Defect triage meeting participants should have a good agenda, validate the severity of the flaws, make any necessary revisions, confirm the resolution of the problems, and allocate resources to address them.

Participants in the Defect Triage Meeting

The major attendees of the Defects Triage Meeting are the Test Lead, Developer Lead, and Program Manager since they will discuss every problem and take appropriate action. As opposed to having one representative from each department. You possessed a strong is the only one who is aware of the reported bug. The developer lead is the individual who may offer suggestions for bug fixes and, if necessary, explain technical challenges. The Project Leader is the one who is best equipped to evaluate if the issue is a bug or a feature request.

Conclusion

The triage meeting should cover every defect that has been logged. The test team should be aware of the rejection criteria even if a problem is rejected. Also, if any of the flaws cannot be replicated, the developer can request the tester's real-time information so they can attempt to duplicate the flaw at the triage meeting.

Defect triage is crucial since it let everyone know when the flaw will be rectified and ready for re-testing. The project manager will decide whether to remedy a non-critical fault if doing so involves a significant amount of work from the development team.