Klaus Breyer Tech Leadership, Product Delivery & Startup Strategy.

Bug Triage

In every project, the question of prioritizing the backlog comes up again and again. In the end, in my experience, it is not a single criterion, and also not a two-dimensional matrix that can be used to classify a bug as Trivial / Minor / Major / Critical. Instead, there are many different aspects, not all of which fit every ticket type. Because: Visual bugs are different from Technical Debt, and a product close to release is a different situation than at the start of development.

However, if you think through 1 or 2 of the following aspects that fit the respective situation, you can actually derive the appropriate prioritization for each situation.

  • Correctness: Pixel Optimization ā†” Misleading / wrong information?
  • Urgency: More problems down the line ā†” Polishing, every time possible.
  • Technical: Would be rather overengineering ā†” Is a real pain in the ass.
  • Impact: Edgecase ā†” Mainstream