Bug trouble!

I have been reminded of a recurring theme in my career where I have noticed that bug management is not taken seriously enough. This is trouble because you are potentially losing out on fixing problems before it reaches production and thus, you are not preventing customer frustration.

My dream scenario of managing bugs is that we simply fix as we go, fixing the ones that add the most value and binning the ones that do not add value. We do not spend time debating about the priority. We do not spend time writing endless bug reports. We collaborate. Demo bugs. Have conversations. We work in sync and make decisions on what we fix. Then get on and do it.

Sometimes the dream feels far away and what I have to remind myself as a software tester is to choose your battles wisely.

What is worth fighting for and what can you let go?

What can be frustrating is ticketing systems — like JIRA — that are not kept up to date. When the essential source of truth is not up to date, then the known state is not clear and therefore, it is hard to know what work should be tackled.

I would always recommend keeping your ticketing system up to date.

Admin. Bleurgh. We all hate it. It is a necessity though.

The other thing with bugs is that we sometimes need to champion a bug so they do not just rot in the backlog and get forgotten about. If we have a bug backlog, we need to understand what is in it, inside and out. We can continually bang the drum to make awareness of any outstanding problems that need addressing.

It can feel exhausting. You get push back. People question the value of what you are doing. It would be easier to simply not care and leave them to it. Let them leave things to rot. However, we do care. We never give up. We may have moments of stepping back and taking a deep breath. Then we carry on. We are here to make that difference.

One day. You never know. That dream scenario may become a reality.