What is a Defect Life Cycle?
Defect life cycle is the journey of a defect, as it passes through various states, through during its lifetime. Sometimes also called Bug Life Cycle, it varies with organizations, methodologies and tools.
The purpose of having a well-defined life cycle is to create a process that improves communication, assigns responsibilities and makes tracking easier.
From the above diagram, we can see the stages and their flow. Every step has a responsible person and an action to be performed.
- New
- Whenever a defect is reported, it is in this state.
- Accepted
- The person responsible for verifying the defect has acknowledged that it is indeed a defect.
- Rejected
- The person responsible for verifying the defect has indicated that it is not a defect. A reason is usually specified. The reason could be that it may not be a defect at all, it could be a duplicate, or it may be an enhancement request.
- Assigned
- A developer has been designated to fix this bug.
- Fixed
- The developer has fixed the bug, and it is ready for testing.
- Reopened
- The fix has been tested and found to be not working or causing other defects.
- Verified
- The fix has been tested and certified as working.
- Closed
- This state indicates all processes related to this bug have been completed, and no further action is necessary. In our company, this state means that the QA team has added a regression test case, and the documentation team has updated the release notes.
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