Hi Reader,
Hmm! The topic looks interesting but will the content be as interesting as the topic ?
“Of course, yes, provided you read it”
Some days back I was chatting with one of the Test Lead who is in touch with me after this blog of mine. He was worried about the quality of young Tester’s of today since more than 80% of the people he has interviewed couldn’t clearly explain the concept of “Severity” and “Priority” and its significance in a Bug.
I was wondering what makes the current generation of testers to be so (inclusive of me).
A year back or so, I too wouldn’t have been able to talk about the topics of “Severity” and “Priority”. Luckily my mentor told me “Pradeep, the only person who stops someone from learning anything is themselves”. I have fought a lot with myself and learnt more than what I was before listening to the above quote.
__Bug Bugger Buggest __
For those who haven’t grasped from the books and articles, here it is, an attempt from me to take an example and discuss what exactly is “Severity” and “Priority”.
Lets say you have designed a MOUSE, a mouse that you have been using for while with your PC’s. (Gyan: MOUSE stands for Manually Operated Utility System Equipment, how many s/w engineers know this?)
Low Severity – Low Priority - The Mouse you designed has a LED indicator and it fails to work with the prototype you have developed and there is lot of time for the version of Mouse with LED indication to be released.
1) This forms a Low Severity because the LED you have put into the Mouse you designed is just an indicator to show when the Mouse is in use and does not affect the core or basic functionality of the Mouse.
2) This forms a Low Priority when you have lot of time for the release with LED indicator on the Mouse enabled.
Medium Severity – Medium Priority – The Mouse you developed has a scroll wheel, which gets stuck infrequently that can be released by exerting more pressure on the wheel and there is a month for the release to happen.
1) This forms a Medium Severity because the scroll does not get stuck frequently and this problem can be overcome by exerting more pressure on the wheel.
2) This forms a Medium Priority because there is a month for the release and this issue is analyzed to take less time to get it resolved.
High Severity – High Priority – The Mouse you developed makes the PC to reboot once you plug in its hose to the USB port of the PC. (Assuming it to be a Plug n Play USB Mouse)
1) This forms a High Severity since the Mouse reboots the PC, disallowing you to continue your work or allowing you to loose your unsaved data.
2) This forms a High Priority irrespective of whether a release exists or not since the very meaning of Mouse itself is lost due to this bug/defect.
There are another six combinations like Low Severity – Medium Priority, Low Severity – High Priority, Medium Severity – Low Priority, High Severity – Low Priority, High Severity – Medium Priority. You can mail me with examples of the above 6 combinations, I would be interested to know how creative are you with framing bugs for the above categories.( Excuse me if I am further boring you by asking you to work on it)
__ Bug Bugger Buggest ___
If still you haven’t understood what is “Severity” and “Priority” is ……
“If your girlfriend is talking to someone it is a High Severity and the need for you to look for a new one is High Priority"
Regards,
Pradeep Soundararajan
Pradeep.srajan@gmail.com
Sunday, March 26, 2006
Bug Bugger Buggest !
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11 comments:
As usual it was good.. may be the example you have used could have been a software related one instead of a Hardware..(Ex:A deliverable with defects....)
That classic GF example was pretty kewl...
Hi.
I am one of the reader of ur blog:)
about the rest five conditions can be easy to tell..but frequntly wht is asked is high prioirty and low severity..
and i want to answer that:)
lets take ur example only...
for high priority and low severity
The company name is mispelled on mouse..
This is high priority as it is goining illegel
and it is low sevior coz it is not damaging the syastem functainality and it will not cause any damage to the system..
is the example is right?
i am new in this testng field.i am doing Dilom in s/w testing,currently but have 1.5 years exp in development...:)
so let meknow if i m right?
Hi 2 Anonymous,
example for high priority - low severity you gave is pretty innovative and good but still i would like to have more , pls do mail me , so that the comments section does not get bigger than the post :D
hi Pradeep,
I am a regular reader of your blog.
I wanted to have a shot at high severity and low priority bug. Taking your eg i'd like to add that I have also written a code which gives a randomly generated 100 operations to the mouse (left-click, right-click, scroll etc. just for testing). Then i found that for a particular combination of 100 operations the system crashes. This might constitute a high severity and a low priority bug.
Hig Severity- because the failure costs (in terms of time money and data) a lot.
low priority- because this particular combination has a very low probability of occuring 1/(100 permutations of 3 operations).
Am i right?
Hi Mr Mouse Coder :D,
Interesting that you made it to crash but why do you want to put it at low priority ?
I agree that the combination may be tough to come out with but there are such strange people who can sue you for the money they lost and hence I would put it at High Severity and Medium Priority , Just to please both of us and rest of the world too :D
Regards
Pradeep Soundararajan
Hi Pradeep,
I would say "simple to understand" for anyone. I am gonna send this to all freshers I know so that they could be benfited if they are going to do testing in the future.
Thanks a lot and moreover each post is a great learning.
Sara
Hi Sara,
Each post may be a great learning but there are people who have negative comments on my post too , so thanks for your perception.
Moreover I really thank for this comment because I wanted to make it as simple as possible and hopefully I get the same comment from all.
Hi pradeep,
could you please also explain verification and validation in such simpler manner?coz these terms are also most confusing.
Hi Anony Mouse :D
Verfication and Validation , of course are confusing terms and thanks for giving me a topic to post ... I shall research on how simple and best I can put up this and make a post within a month .. Sorry if its too late but still I shall make it worth reading.
Priority is Business.
Severity is Technical.
And when i say Business then it depends on company to company and hence the priority.
So to set the priority correct,business aspect should be properly known by the testers.
Mechanically Operated User Signal Engine
or
Manually Operated Utility System Equipment
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