Defect management is a crucial part of the software development lifecycle. The main purpose of using defect management is to ensure quality through all stages of software development. Gone are the days when developers worked in isolation, teams now work together to make the most of their software testing efforts. Most of the organizations fail to fully utilize the defect management tools with so much of their potential functionalities remaining unused. Software testing teams need these tools to complete their projects in due time. If you are not sure about which defect management tool to use, there are many open-source tools available on the internet. In addition, there are companies that provide defect management tools according to the specific client requirements.
To maintain software quality, it is essential to keep track of the different bugs that appear in the system. These bugs can be defects or some sort of errors. The defect tracking tools are capable of preventing defects from causing any issues once the software is launched into the market. It is quite embarrassing and point of losing sales when it comes to defects appearing in during software development process. Let's have a look at the best practices for defect management:
Follow a simple approach to defect tracking:
There are hundreds of defect management tools in the market. When you begin working on a project, make sure you use a single tool and a simple approach. Defect management aims at bringing all the teams under one roof, so that there is uniformity in their work. But in order to remain on the same page, they all require working on a single strategy. It is also important to involve and get feedback from all the involved team members who will be using the defect tracking tool. These key stakeholders include development teams, quality assurance, customer services, project managers, etc. The contribution of these stakeholders will ensure the success of defect management.
Collect relevant information only:
Testers often gather too much information which is not even relevant to the project they are working on. A test management tool works best only when the right information is fed into it and it will only work efficiently if they are able to do capture relevant details regarding bugs. Teams will literally end up wasting their time if they have recorded irrelevant or missing information into the system.
Conclusion
Bugs and defects are unavoidable in any software application. However, testers work on improving the quality of an app by dealing with bugs more efficiently. There are certain pitfalls in defect management that should be avoided to achieve better results from the process. This includes reporting the same bug repeatedly. Avoiding duplication can save time and also avoid any confusion. It is a time consuming process and can be daunting as well. Development teams equipped with the right defect management tools can reduce the amount of bugs appearing in the system.