There was a time when defect management was a tightly monitored and controlled process that needed to be carried out separately. But now, in the agile world, dynamics have changed completely and it is more about driving accountability. Teams are more focused on meeting the targets by incorporating defect management tools in their existing system rather than carrying out an autonomous process. In current scenarios, you are expected to deliver a complete system to the delivery team rather than performing your chunk of work and handing it over to someone else.
The agile framework is not as simple as it seems and once you incorporate it in your organizations, only then you will realize the aspects which have to be dealt with with great care. For instance, many people do not have clarity about how a team can work together in an Agile environment to carry out different tasks simultaneously or to complete the project in a successful way.
Here are two cases that we can consider to understand the utilization of defect management tools in the agile world.
Case 1: Defects occurring during the work being in progress
This is the norm that we can expect in an Agile environment. Testing is performed simultaneously and when a bug is identified, it is instantly communicated to the developers. Once the developer fixes the errors, the program is sent back to the tester and it is retested again.
This scenario is debatable as some say that defects should be recorded properly before they are assigned and this practice is more recommended but everyone follows the approach which suits their practices. If the entire team knows details regarding the defects then a better understanding is developed and the extra time required for the understanding of bugs and issues is minimized. So it is valuable to record the defects using a tool to increase transparency in the team. As the team leads, use reports and metrics to make future decisions so all the information should be recorded in a systematic way.
Case 2: Deferred Defects
While working in the Agile world, all the tasks are performed simultaneously and things need to be completed and fixed before the delivery. In such a case, if any issue is deferred then it means that it is not required in the current release and that issue is related to future aspects that can be dealt in the later phase.
So if a defect is deferred, it means that the team agreed that this part is not on priority and this will not be the part of the next release. There are also chances that proper requirements were not considered at some point due to which a defect was deferred. In the case of the waterfall model, to implement such changes you have to go through a complete change request process whereas in the agile model things are comparatively manageable and it can be easily prioritized.
All these issues and defects should be measured completely and an analysis report should be generated using different tools so that decisions can be made to improve the quality.
Discipline in Agile Projects
Since you are part of the Agile framework now, so you should know at this point, you need to be explicitly disciplined to implement the processes using defect management tools and cater to all the bugs and issues. As the team itself is creating the processes and nothing is imposed on it so a detailed discussion and guidance wouldn’t be out of place.
In case, there is no guidance, implement the important points you learned during your working years, and work together as a team to make the processes more efficient. At the end of the day, the Agile model is all about teamwork which leads to continuous improvement.
