Bug Triage Process

Olha Holota from TestCaseLab
3 min readSep 14, 2023

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Bug Triage Process — banner

Let’s discuss the process of Bug Triage in order to assess its necessity in the Software Development Life Cycle.

Understanding the Bug Triage Process

What is Bug Triage?

Bug triage is the process of systematically evaluating and categorizing reported bugs based on their severity and impact on the software application.

It plays a pivotal role in ensuring that identified bugs are properly addressed, prioritized, and assigned to the right developers.

Why is Bug Triage Important?

As you embark on your journey as a software tester, it’s crucial to grasp the significance of bug triage:

  1. Effective triage ensures that limited development resources are allocated to the most critical bugs, optimizing time and effort.
  2. Triage prevents unnecessary delays by addressing show-stopping issues early in the development process.
  3. It fosters collaboration between testers and developers by clearly communicating bug details and priorities.
  4. Prioritizing and resolving high-impact bugs promptly enhances customer satisfaction by improving software reliability and usability.

The Bug Triage Process Steps

Step 1. Bug Submission

The bug triage process begins when you report a bug. Your bug report should be thorough and include detailed information such as

  • a clear bug description,
  • steps to reproduce,
  • any relevant attachments (screenshots, logs, etc.).

It is better to provide as much context as possible to aid the team in understanding the issue.

Step 2. Initial Assessment

During this stage, your testing team reviews the bug report. The goal is to assess the bug’s validity, ensuring it’s not a duplicate or a non-issue.

In some cases, they might request additional information from you, so be prepared to collaborate closely during this phase.

Step 3. Severity and Priority Assignment

Understanding how to assign the right severity and priority levels is crucial.

Severity relates to the bug’s impact on the software, while priority determines its urgency.

In this process, it is highly important to adhere to predefined criteria to ensure consistency in assigning these levels.

Step 4. Assignment to Developers

Once the bug has been categorized, it’s assigned to the appropriate developer or development team. Developers should have a crystal-clear understanding of the issue and its urgency. Detailed bug reports and ongoing collaboration are key here.

Simplifying Bug Triage

Let’s emphasize the value of tools that simplify bug management. TestCaseLab is a robust test case management tool that can greatly facilitate the bug triage process for software testers.

Here’s how it can help:

  • TestCaseLab streamlines the bug reporting process, enabling you to easily create detailed bug reports. It provides a useful form to report a bug directly to your integrated bug tracker — Jira, Asana, Redmine, Trello, Pivotal, YouTrack, and the like.
  • It also fosters a collaborative environment where testers and developers can work together seamlessly to manage and resolve bugs efficiently. TestCaseLab does not have any limits for the number of users added to the account.
  • TestCaseLab seamlessly integrates with popular bug-tracking systems, enhancing your bug management workflow. Reported bugs will be automatically attached to failed tests in order to make it easy for you to track bug fixing.

Effective bug triage not only identifies problems but also sets the stage for successful bug resolution. As you continue your journey in software testing, keep refining your bug-reporting skills and collaborating closely with developers — these are essential elements of a successful testing career.

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Olha Holota from TestCaseLab

My name is Olha, and I am a Project Manager. At the moment I manage the project TestCaseLab. It is a cutting-edge web tool for manual QA engineers.