How to Handle Bugs in Agile: Lifecycle and Best Practices and Strategies.
Handling incidents in Agile can be exhausting, and terrifying at the same time.
Early developers at Agile Manifesto once said, “agile is an attitude, not a technique with boundaries”. Therefore, it became a major skill for developers to possess a high level of solution techniques and immediate awareness for bugs, incidents, problems, and service requests in agile development.
This means going through the whole user story in production and development functionality in a sprint by testing and survey of the entire process.
In this article, we’d feature the keys to managing bugs, following the lifecycle process, and still deliver successful products that bring value to your customers.
Bugs
Bugs are defects or issues found during development or testing, hindering functionality and production qualities.
In other words, a bug is the malfunctioning of software and can be classified into three segments — low preference bug, medium preference bug, and high preference bug. Each with a different approach.
Life Cycle of a Bug In Agile.
The life cycle of a bug in agile ranges from its discovery to logging in a tracking system, prioritizing, assigning, fixing, testing, verifying, closure, and reviewing to enable continuous improvement and learning within the development process by systematically tracking, identifying, and resolving bugs.
This process allows for insights and feedback to be gathered at each stage, leading to valuable lessons learned. Through the bug life cycle, teams can analyze the root causes of bugs, identify patterns or recurring issues, and implement preventive measures to minimize future occurrences.
It is called an iterative approach that promotes a culture of continuous improvement, where bugs become opportunities for learning and enhancing the overall quality of the software product.
For Example: Let’s say an Agile development team is working on a web application. During the testing phase, a bug is discovered where certain user inputs in a form are not being validated correctly, leading to potential data integrity issues.
The bug is logged into the tracking system, assigned a priority, and a developer takes ownership of resolving it.
Through the bug life cycle, the developer investigates the issue, identifies that the validation logic was not properly implemented, and fixes the code accordingly.
Once the bug fix is implemented, it goes through testing and verification. However, testers verify that the validation issue is indeed resolved and perform additional tests to ensure the fix hasn’t caused any regressions.
By actively managing the bug life cycle, Agile teams can deliver higher-quality software, improve customer satisfaction, and refine their development practices over time.
How to Handle Bugs in Agile.
Effectively handling bugs in Agile development requires a systematic approach. Here is a simple process that identifies the keys to handling bugs in agile
- Bug Identification: Bugs are mostly identified through testing and user feedback.
- Bug Tracking: Bugs are logged into a bug tracking system, including relevant details such as description, steps to reproduce, and attachments.
- Prioritization: Bugs are prioritized based on their impact and urgency, ensuring the most critical ones are addressed first.
- Assignment: Bugs are assigned to developers or team members responsible for resolving them.
- Bug Fixing: Developers investigate and fix the bugs, addressing the root cause and implementing necessary code changes.
- Testing and Verification: Fixed bugs undergo testing to ensure the resolution is effective and doesn’t introduce new issues.
- Regular Bug Review: Bugs are reviewed in Agile meetings to assess progress, identify any patterns or underlying issues, and make necessary adjustments.
- Continuous Improvement: Lessons learned from bug fixes are applied to improve development practices, prevent similar issues in the future, and enhance product quality.
Conclusion.
Handling incidents and bugs in Agile development requires a proactive and systematic approach. Agile developers must possess a high level of necessary skills and awareness to identify and address issues promptly.
However, by following best practices such as bug identification, tracking, prioritization, fixing, testing, and regular bug reviews, teams can effectively handle bugs while maintaining the Agile momentum — ensuring the successful delivery of valuable products to customers.
