Defects can have serious consequences. They need to be identified and fixed early in the development process. To do so, you need to report it; either in an excel sheet or defect tracking tool. The fundamental principles are the same for both methods. Even if you have capable defect tracking tools, you need to adopt good practices to have quality reporting.

1. Laziness

Test leads to review the defects before handing them over to the QA teams. This review confirms:

• Validity
• Completeness
• Duplicates
• Reproducible or not

It’s impossible for a QA lead to be 100% thorough. The whole team needs to take responsibility for defects and help the QA lead decide if the defects are valid/complete or not. This shows the credibility of the QA team as well as the team lead. Some clients have an SLA for the number of acceptable invalid defects. The contractors are penalized for every invalid defect reported once the number exceeds.

Solution

Be responsible for your deliverable. Development teams need to own the bugs in the application. Sometimes it’s not entirely their fault – QA teams can mess up as well. It must be ensured that this doesn’t happen.

2. Rushing

Testers need not rush. Before taking any measure, make sure that:

• It is indeed a bug
• It is reproducible
• It is not a duplicate
• You know the exact description of the problem
• You know the exact steps that make it happen

Now that you have the raw material, you’re prepared to make the final product.

Start by reporting the defect. Don’t forget to assign the severity so that your team knows which bugs they should fix first. Testers have to make sure that they communicate the seriousness of the problem the best they can.

Solution

Stay patient. Understand the impact of the problems from different angles. It’s the best value-addition testers can provide. Tester’s job isn’t just to identify what’s not working, they must also tell what will happen if that particular thing continues to not work. There is a lot of difference between the two.

3. Lack of Creativity

Testers have a great opportunity to make suggestions to improve the software. Defect tracking tools let testers to submit a defect of type “enhancement suggestion”. This allows them to be creative.

Solution

Testers need to think outside the box. They must be confident about their idea or if they think that a “wow” factor is missing in a certain feature. Put it forward and don’t be afraid of rejection. What do you have to lose? It’s better to try. But it’s also important to be careful. Avoid making negative comments such as “I hate the banner’s color, please change it.” An example of a good suggestion can be replacing “email to the dealer” with the “chat with the dealer” option on a car dealership website. Some people are born creative while some people have to try harder.