Defect Life Cycle or Bug Life Cycle in Software Testing

Defect Life Cycle in software testing is a series of stages that a defect goes through during its lifetime. The Defect Life Cycle starts with the identification of a defect and ends when the defect is resolved and verified as fixed. Let’s discuss the various stages of Defect Life Cycle in detail.

Bug or defect life cycle includes following steps or status:

• • • Open/New: When a defect is logged and posted for the first time, its state is set as new /open
    • Assigned: the defect is assigned to a person who is tasked with its analysis or resolution.
    • Duplicate: If the defect is repeated twice or if the defect corresponds to the same concept as the bug, the status is changed to “duplicate.”
    • Rejected: If the defect is invalid because of various other reasons like false positives it is dropped / rejected.
    • Deferred: If the defect is not of a high priority and is expected to get fixed in the next release, then the defect is deferred.
    • Not a Bug: This state is assigned to defects that were misclassified as defects and did not affect the functionality of the software.
    • Fixed/Resolved: After the developers complete the necessary code changes, the defect’s state is set to “fixed”.
    • Retest: At this stage, the testing team retests the code given to them by the developers.
    • Reopened: If the bug still exists, its state is set back to Open and the lifecycle restarts.
    • Verified: If the developers have successfully fixed the bug, the testing team sets its status to verified.
    • Closed: Once the bug has been verified as fixed, the testing team closes the issue.

Defect Data

• • Type of Testing
  • Description of Defect
  • Life Cycle Phase
  • Severity
  • Priority
  • Type of Defect
  • Owner
  • Work product where Defect occurred
  • Risk, loss, opportunity, and benefits associated with fixing or not fixing the defect
  • The description of how the defect was resolved and recommendations for testing
  • Problem Summary
  • Steps to Reproduce
  • Work product where Defect was introduced
  • Subsystem or Component where the Defect is introduced
  • Identification Method
  • Project and Product in which problem exists
  • The current State of Report
  • Impact on Project
  • Dates when various defect lifecycle phases occur
  • References

Defect Report contains below fields data

• • Defect ID
  • Feature Name
  • The severity of the defect
  • Name of the Tester assigned to the defect
  • Build Version in which the defect was found
  • Description of the defect
  • Test Case Name
  • Status in which the defect is currently
  • The priority of the defect
  • Date of testing the defect
  • Name of the Developer who has been assigned to remove the defect
  • Environment Name
  • Screenshots of the defect
  • Defect creation date

Defect Life Cycle is a critical aspect of software testing, as it ensures that defects are tracked, analyzed, and resolved systematically. Effective management of the Defect Life Cycle can help software development teams identify and fix defects in a timely manner, resulting in a high-quality software product.

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