Impact of Issues in Software Development
While developing software, it is really important to track and consider the aspects through which it is ensured how an error occurred and tracks its complete progress. In software development, effective project management and its tracking play a prominent role, and rarely a task gets completed if it is not tracked through a proper channel. Team leads need to know and manage who is responsible for which task and how the tasks are being performed. Management and the employees in the lead roles play an active part in the way they manage the tasks and how they incorporate project management and issue tracking tools to achieve desirable results. Humans have been relying on various techniques and methods to achieve the set targets but processes have been continuously evolving and the need for tools increased through which the entire process can be systematized and remain transparent due to which set targets can be achieved timely.
Characteristics of Issue Trackers
To understand the impact of an issue on software and how it defines the fate of the project, it is important to recognize its repercussions and how mismanagement of issues or delayed reporting can take the fate of the project down the hill. If one tends to incorporate issue tracking tools in their development process then they need to consider the following aspects.
- Ownership is assigned to each issue and can be tracked easily at any time by the management.
- When an issue is reported, it goes through a series of transitions and phases and they all are easily recorded and monitored. One can also create customized workflows to manage the issues if this functionality is supported by the tracking tool being used.
- Issues can be grouped and prioritized as per need and urgency.
Essential Steps for Tracking and Recording Issues
If you have been developing the software, no matter how big or small it is, you would experience issues and bugs and need to manage them effectively so that you can appropriately create the final product. Issue management plays a prominent role in project development which most people tend to ignore and then pay for it in monetary as well as timely terms. If you are working on a project which requires an extensive team and is more than a one-person-show then you need to work around issue tracking tools rather than sticking to the traditional excel sheets as work becomes manageable and transparent in the whole process. The following are the steps that are involved in bug tracking.
Assign Bugs
There is a famous saying which suits well in the testing case, anything which can be measured can be managed. For the very same reason, it is important to record all sorts of issues in the system. If any issue is not communicated timely or properly to the developer then there are chances that it will be fixed in time. It is really important to assign the issue to a specified person and then monitor the status so that work doesn’t get delayed. Testing is not limited to finding out the issues, if you didn’t assign the bug to a developer then it means that there is a block and miscommunication which might result in delayed projects and increased cost.
Verify the Changes
Proper accountability should be maintained and there should be a person who constantly verifies the changes and revisions taking place. One needs to ensure that the assigned task is being done properly. This phase is extremely important and should not be ignored at any cost. If changes are not verified then there are chances that significant issues can be slipped in the deployment phase which might result in angry customers in a loss in revenue.
Update the Status and Push the Issue
In the testing process, testers verify multiple issues simultaneously and sometimes forget to change the status which creates a discrepancy in the later phase. There are chances some issues have high priority and they need to be deployed on an urgent basis after being fixed but if the status is not changed timely then things won’t go as per plan.
Conclusion
These three easy steps can ensure promising testing and the impact of issues can be ignored in real-time. The issue is something that can not be avoided so it is better to control it in the best possible manner.
Ray is a Marketing Consultant at Software Development Lead. He loves to write tech-related news, articles, specifically quality assurance and information security. Apart from his techie appearance, he enjoys soccer, reading mysteries, and spending long hours working over at the New York office.