Defect Resolution Process

Defect resolution is one of the most important actions in improving software. Which defects are needed to fix on priority sometime becomes very difficult at times. Highly severe defects are a little bit hard to fix and require a lot of time of development team whereas less severe defects are very easy to fix and require less time of development team. Once the developers have successfully acknowledged a defect as valid, defect resolution process starts to beings.

Developers are always under pressure to resolve defects and reduce their impact. If guidelines are not cleared, developers tend to fix easy defects first. Defect resolution is not an easy process, as soon as we touch one piece of code for resolving it, it can impact other areas as well. This will result in arising of additional defects.

Steps involved in Defect Resolution Process :
There are basically three steps involved in this process :

1. Prioritize Defect :
   Development team firstly analyze defect and their impact. Then they prioritize defects on the basis of their severity. The main aim of this step is simply to answers some questions and immediately initiate action that is required :
   • Defect is reported previously or not?
   • Defect should be given what priority to fix it?
   • What steps should be taken to simply reduce the impact of defects prior to fix?
2. Resolve Defect :
   On the basis of priority assigned to each defect, development team then resolves defects. Some defects need to fix immediately, some defects can be resolved later, and some defects are not needed to fix at all depending upon their impact and resources required to fix it. Some organizations simply treat lower priority defects as changes. All defects are equally created from perspective of how quickly they are needed to be fixed.

   Resolving defects also include correcting and verifying one or more deliverables i.e. programs, documentation that is required to remove defects totally from system. Test manager identifies process of resolving defects while development team is resolving defect.

3. Report Resolution :
   Development then further has to report about resolution to the testing team that when and how the defect has been fixed. In simple words, developers notify all relevant parties about when and how defect was resolved. Once defect has been resolved and fixing is verified, particular developers, users, and testers are needed to notify that defect has been resolved including with other information like :
   • Nature of Fix
   • When fix will get released
   • How it will get released