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Version: 24.3

Defect Tracking and Reporting

This article provides an overview of the Defect Tracking and Reporting in Agility.

Overview​

Defects allow agile teams to plan and track fixes as separate assets within the system. This article suggests a couple of different tracking approaches and reports that show additional defect details.

Defect Tracking​

Defects are part of the backlog and so can be planned out, estimated, scheduled and tracked within sprints/iteration and can be tracked in two ways. No special setup is required for either approach.

Method 1: Planned & Scheduled Defects​

Planning and scheduling defects can be particularly helpful for large defects. Defects are part of the backlog and are treated just like backlog items , just with different attributes, with respect to planning and scheduling. Defects are given size estimates that factor into the team's velocity. They can also be broken out into tasks and tests to allocate the work across multiple team members or to more precisely identify the work required in a larger effort.

Generally, you can create and plan defects in the Product Planning area. Here, defects display in a grid view and can be parsed out to specific projects, reviewed by the team, and then scheduled in a sprint or iteration.

A few things to note:

  • The Estimate attributed to defects roll up in Velocity calculations along with backlog item Estimate.
  • Detail Estimate and remaining To Do for the defect roll up into the sprint's totals.
  • Defects that are completed and approved should be closed. This removes them from default tracking pages and indicates the work is complete.

Teams can track the defects in a sprint or iteration the Sprint or Iteration Tracking pages. Members can track their assigned defects on the My Home page.

Method 2. Defect Work Queue​

The work queue approach can be easier to manage if you have lots of small defects. In this method, all the defects are stored in a single list (the Backlog) and assigned directly to team members who work from top-down in priority order.

New defects are added to the list, sorted by priority and assigned to individual team members, but are not scheduled in a sprint or iteration.

Team members can view assigned defects on their My Home page.

Here are a few things to remember:

  • Teams using the work queue approach typically won't define a size Estimate or a Detail Estimate for the defects. Since these are not contained within any sprints or iterations, they will not roll up into any velocity calculations or sprint Burndown.
  • Defects that are completed and approved should be closed. This removes them from default tracking pages and indicates the work is complete.

Working with Defects

Why did I receive a Type error when converting a story to defect and defect to story

Planning

Acceptance Tests