Priority Examples
In defect management, understanding the difference between severity and priority is essential for effective bug tracking and resolution. Severity refers to how significantly a defect affects the operation of the software, varying from critical to trivial impacts. On the other hand, priority indicates how urgently a defect needs to be fixed from a business perspective, which can also vary.
Severity Classifications:
- Critical: Issues that cause the application to crash or lead to system failure (e.g., app crashes on login).
- Major: Significant problems that affect functionality but do not crash the application (e.g., wrong calculation in invoice total).
- Minor: Lesser issues that don’t severely affect the application (e.g., UI alignment issues).
- Trivial: Minor defects that are cosmetic and can be tolerated for a period (e.g., typo in footer text).
Priority Classifications:
- High: Critical issues that must be addressed before release (e.g., fix required before launch).
- Medium: Important but can wait for the next sprint (can be scheduled in the next sprint).
- Low: Cosmetic improvements or issues that can be deferred (fix can wait for a future release).
Understanding these classifications allows teams to triage and efficiently allocate resources for resolutions. Careful consideration of the severity and priority of defects ensures that the most impactful problems are addressed promptly.