Defect Life Cycle

Defect Life Cycle which is also called as Bug Life Cycle. Below is what we cover in this post:

• Defect Status
• Defect Status Explanation
• Different Flows of Defect
• Defect Life Cycle Implementation Guidelines

Defect Status Explanation:

New:

When the bug is posted for the first time, its state will be “NEW”. This means that the bug is not yet approved.

Open:

After a tester has posted a bug, the lead of the tester approves that the bug is genuine and he changes the state as “OPEN”.

Assign:

Once the lead changes the state as “OPEN”, he assigns the bug to corresponding developer or developer team. The state of the bug now is changed to “ASSIGN”.

Test:

Once the developer fixes the bug, he has to assign the bug to the testing team for next round of testing. Before he releases the software with bug fixed, he changes the state of bug to “TEST”. It specifies that the bug has been fixed and is released to testing team.

Deferred:

The bug, changed to deferred state means the bug is expected to be fixed in next releases. The reasons for changing the bug to this state have many factors. Some of them are priority of the bug may be low, lack of time for the release or the bug may not have major effect on the software.

Rejected:

If the developer feels that the bug is not genuine, he rejects the bug. Then the state of the bug is changed to “REJECTED”.

Duplicate:

If the bug is repeated twice or the two bugs mention the same concept of the bug, then one bug status is changed to “DUPLICATE”.

Verified:

Once the bug is fixed and the status is changed to “TEST”, the tester tests the bug. If the bug is not present in the software, he approves that the bug is fixed and changes the status to “VERIFIED”.

Reopened:

If the bug still exists even after the bug is fixed by the developer, the tester changes the status to “REOPENED”. The bug traverses the life cycle once again.

Closed:

Once the bug is fixed, it is tested by the tester. If the tester feels that the bug no longer exists in the software, he changes the status of the bug to “CLOSED”. This state means that the bug is fixed, tested and approved.

Different Flows of Defect:

• New — > Opened — > Fixed — >Closed
• New — > Opened — > Rejected — >Closed
• New — > Opened — > Fixed — >Re-opened — > Fixed –> Closed
• New — > Opened — > Deferred
• New — > Opened — > Rejected– >Re-opened — > Fixed –> Closed

Defect Life Cycle Implementation Guidelines:

• Make sure the entire team understands what each defect status exactly means. Also, make sure the defect life cycle is documented.
• Ensure that each individual clearly understands his/her responsibility as regards to each defect.
• If a defect tracking tool (i.e. JIRA, Rational Clear Quest, Bugzilla etc ) is being used, avoid entertaining any ‘defect related requests’ without an appropriate change in the status of the defect in the tool. Do not let anybody take shortcuts, else you will never be able to get up-to-date defect metrics for analysis.

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