Track It Til You Make It! 5 Simple Bug Tracking Tips

There is no bug-free software, you know that. All people have their sins and all developers make mistakes in their projects. Even perfectly developed program may fail.

The task of recording and processing the information about the errors occurred on the software only at first sight seems to be simple. From version to version number of known errors may increase or decrease. “The old errors were removed, the new ones were added” – this is an old joke about the developers. A wonderful product created for error control was called bug tracking system.

Bug tracking system. What it is and how it works.

Bug Tracking System is a software designed to help programmers, testers, and project managers to integrate and control errors (bugs) found in the software and monitor the process of eliminating these errors. In other words, bug tracking system helps to track and organize bugs.

Below you will find 4 the most popular bug tracking systems and its features.

And to add a cherry on the top, meet Ubertesters own easy-to-use bug tracker, which allows you to not only accumulate all reports in one place, but also manage them directly in your Ubertesters account.

6 tips on how to make the process of bugs tracking easy and simple

#1.Make fast and frequent releases.

Remember that those bugs that have been carried along for a very long time can be considered the most annoying ones. Focus on fast and frequent releases enables you to create a tight feedback look between the developers and testers and will help you to avoid bug queues with dozens of open bug reports.

#2.Open up the opportunities for communication.

When you are making a report about a bug, you need to identify the information that will be added to all your bug reports. You can face the situations when some misunderstanding takes place or some important piece of information is missing. In this case the communication between the developers and testers becomes the necessity. In order to avoid such situations, bring all members of your team on the same page and work on creating a feedback-oriented culture.

#3.Avoid discussing bugs during project meetings

Bugs discussion and forwarding it to the next stage is a very slow process. You would better keep it one-to one. Every your bug is linked to two specialists that can be named as issue specifier (tester) and issue solving (developer). No matter how many developers and testers are working on your project, you will have only two specialists with different roles and functions who will be responsible for solving the existent issue.

#4. Concentrate on the possible solution

Avoid comments that express your personal opinion as for the existent bug in bug reports. Use email or chart tool instead. Your bug report should contain only the relevant information as for monitoring and fixing the bug.

#5. Be on the same page with the rest of your team as for the meaning of a closed bug.

When you face the necessity to discuss the status of the bug, the following questions will help you to make the right decision: who is the person responsible for giving commands (or reporting bugs), who is responsible for accepting the results (the solution of the existent issue)? As for the term ‘closed bug’, usually it means that the bug was closed by the developer who has solved this issue. Make sure that the person responsible for closing a bug is the same person who reported about it since only this person is responsible for the sufficient solution of this issue.

#6.Try to use only two statuses for the bugs: open bugs and closed ones.

Avoid wasting your time on various statues of your bugs instead of focusing on the possible solutions of your problem.