Note that this post is part of a series where I am ‘live blogging’ my way through the ministry of testing’s 30 days of Agile Testing challenge.
Talk to a developer about a bug instead of logging it in the tracking system. If I am working on a feature that is under active development, I usually do this in some form. Most of the time if I go straight to the bug tracking system it’s because I found a bug in ‘completed’ features and so it will need to be prioritized against other work. If I’m testing something that is still being developed I will usually communicate with the developer through other means. Some of the ways we do this is through chatting them, or doing a hangout, or via a spreadsheet template.
In fact, using spreadsheets is one of the most common ways we communicate potential issues. We have a template that includes categories like ‘question’ or ‘UI feedback’ in addition to ‘defects.’ Doing this through a spreadsheet allows us to take a lightweight approach and also make cross role collaboration much easier. We can easily tag the product owner or the documentation person for input as needed. In the bug tracking system the issue usually boils down to something just between the tester and developer as the bug can really only be assigned to one person at a time, but in google sheets we can easily tag multiple people on one issue and have a discussion about it.
In summary, I have long prioritized conversation over documentation when it comes to bugs and I would highly recommend that approach for anyone!
offbeattesting 