Infosys Technologies Limited

IVS L1-T101

IVS L1 CERTIFICATION DEFECT LIFE CYCLE (Version 1.3)

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IVS L1-T101

Revision History:
Date 01-Sep-05 Author(s) Gomathi Ramasubramanian / Aruna Shankar Aruna Shankar Aruna Shankar Gomathi Ramasubramanian / Amber Kumar Reviewer(s) Version 1.0 Kartik K Shishank Gupta 1.1 1.2 Description Initial Version Represented the Defect Life Cycle in the form of a flow chart Modified the index and flow chart Embedded the objects to point to the documents referenced by some reference hyperlinks

22-Sep-05 28-Oct-05

18-Nov-05

Ramesh Pusala

1.3

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IVS L1-T101

Index
1 Introduction.......................................................................................................................4 2 Defect Life Cycle .............................................................................................................4 3 Properties of a defect........................................................................................................6 4 Cost of Quality..................................................................................................................6 5 Defect Management Tools................................................................................................7 5.1 Mercurys Test Director.............................................................................................7 5.2 Mozillas Bugzilla......................................................................................................8 6 Things to Remember.....................................................................................................9 7 References.....................................................................................................................9

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IVS L1-T101

1 Introduction
Defect (or Fault) is a result of an entry of erroneous information into software. This could be due to an error in the requirements, design and architecture documents. If these discrepancies are not identified during the review of the documents, then these have to be identified during the testing phase. These can come out as defects with different severity(complexity) during testing. A software defect can be regarded as any failure to address end-user requirements. Common defects include missed or misunderstood requirements and errors in design, functional logic, data relationships, process timing, validity checking, coding, etc. The defect management approach is based on counting and managing defects. Defects are commonly categorized by severity, and the numbers in each category are used for planning. More mature software development organizations use tools such as defect leakage metrics (for counting the numbers of defects that pass through development phases prior to detection) and control charts to measure and improve development process capability.

2 Defect Life Cycle

Defect life cycle starts when a tester finds a discrepancy in the application under test. This could be in the application directly or in an interface the application interacts with. Different stakeholders involved in this are Tester Development Project Manager Business Analyst Third Party Vendor Developer

The Defect life cycle flow is as follows:

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IVS L1-T101

Start of Defect Life Cycle

D
Developer starts fixing the code Status = In -Progress

S
Is it a New test? Yes Tester performs a new test No Tester Retests the old test.

No

Status = Fixed

Found a defect?

No

Was the test successfu l? Yes

E
Status= Open

Status= Retest

Yes Status= New

Status= Closed

S E
End of Defect Life Cycle Development Project Manager: Analyses the defect.

Defect Analysis Begins

Is it a defe ct? No Status= Rejected

Yes

Is it in scop e? No Status= Postponed

Yes

Is it alrea dy raised ? Yes Status= Duplicate

No

Is it due to third party? No Status= Assigned

Yes

Status= Third Party

5 E
Status= Cancelled

E D

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IVS L1-T101

3 Properties of a defect
When a defect is raised, it should have the following information associated with it. Defect_ID Unique identification for the defect which will help in easily tracking the defect Test Description Detailed description of the defect Severity Severity of the defect according to the tester. The values it can hold are Critical, Cosmetic, Major, Minor Priority Urgency at which the defect needs a fix. It can hold the values Medium, Low, High Status Status of the defect (Can be Open, Closed, Assigned etc) Date Raised Date when the defect is raised Date Fixed Date Owner Owner of this state of the defect.

4 Cost of Quality
Cost of quality comprises of three components Prevention Cost Appraisal Cost Failure Cost Total cost of quality = Prevention cost + appraisal cost + failure cost Prevention cost - Cost incurred in preventing an error from occurring. E.g. Carrying out a thorough requirements analysis, design, process definition for maintaining quality. This cost increases with the increased degree of Quality. Generally Appraisal cost Cost incurred for testing and review. As this cost increases, the degree of quality increases only up to a limit. After certain limit there will not be considerable increase in the degree of quality with respect to the Appraisal cost Failure cost Cost incurred in removing all the defects in the software. This is the costliest of all the costs and as the Failure cost increases, the increase in the degree of quality reduces.

Studies show that the COQ in IT is approximately 50% of the total cost of building a product. Of the 50% COQ, 40% is failure, 7% is appraisal, and 3% is prevention. Other 6

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IVS L1-T101

studies have shown that $1 spent on appraisal costs will reduce failure costs threefold; and each dollar spent on prevention costs will reduce failure costs tenfold. Obviously, the right appraisal and prevention methods must be used to get these benefits.

5 Defect Management Tools

A simple spreadsheet file can be used to report the defects. Availability of sophisticated tools in the market has enabled their common usage. Advantages of using a tool are different for different stakeholders as listed below with the help of features provided by the tool. Customer - Easy tracking of the defects. Project Manager - For getting quick access to the project statistics Tester - Efficient reporting and tracking of defects Developer - Defect fixes can be recorded accurately Features of a defect management tool o o o o o o o o o o o o User friendly Email notification File attachment Audit Trail Configuration Management Customizable Fields Metric Reports Remote Administering Report Cross-Referencing Security Implementation Web-Based Client Workflow Support

Popular tools available in the market are - Mercurys Test Director - Mozillas Bugzilla 5.1 Mercurys Test Director A product by Mercury Interactive Initial versions were of client/server in nature Later versions were web enabled and the present version is Test Director 8.0 Defects can be accessed through the Defects tab. 7

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IVS L1-T101

Features offered for complete defect management include Adding defects Managing defects (allocation, change status etc.) Analysis of defect data Log maintenance to track defect status as and when it undergoes a change Note: Main menu can be seen in the attached picture Defects-Add, Modify, Delete defect etc. can be managed with the sub menus provided in this tab Search-Functionality to search for any information related to the defects logged within the system View- For customizing the view Favorites-Managing the settings Analysis-An important feature to generate reports and graphs for defect analysis

5.2 Mozillas Bugzilla A bug-tracking product from Mozilla.org. It is an enterprise-class piece of software that tracks millions of bugs and issues for hundreds of organizations around the world. An account is created via "Open a new Bugzilla account" link. This is essential in order to use Bugzilla. 8

Infosys Technologies Limited Defects can be accessed through the Bug screen. Features offered for complete defect management include Adding defects Managing defects (allocation, change status etc.) Analysis of defect data Note: Defect lifecycle can be seen in the picture attached. Defects-Add, Modify, Delete defect etc. can be managed.

IVS L1-T101

Searching for Bugs-Functionality to search for any information related to the defects logged within the system Bug Lists- For listing similar kind of bugs. Report- Is a view of the current state of the bug database. Charts- Is a view of the state of the bug database over time.

6 Things to Remember
It is good to include the following information for a defect

Name of the person raising the defect Build version number under test Complete and clear features of the defect Include screen shots wherever possible Exact steps to duplicate the defect along with the data used to test the feature Assigning proper status to the defect

7 References
From PRIDE
Defect and Problem Prevention

Defect and Problem Prevention Guidelines

Defect Classification Guidelines

Defect Classification Guidelines

Defect Data Requirements and Classification REQUIREMENTS AND CLASSIFICATION GUIDELINES

DEFECT DATA

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IVS L1-T101

Defect Estimation and Monitoring Guidelines and Monitoring Guidelines

Defect Estim ation

10