1. Improving the Defect Life Cycle Management Process
may 2016
Oded A. Tankus
Data Scientist / Project Manager

2. Practicalities Duration: 45 minutes + Q&A
Questions: Use the Questions box in GotoWebinar
After the Webinar
Materials: You will be provided with:
Presentation materials
Recording of the Webinar

3. Agenda Objectives Stages in the Defect Life Cycle
Mapping the Defect Life Cycle
Cycles of Inefficiencies and Start-End Paths
Metrics
Conclusion

4. Webinar Objectives
To discuss Analytics supporting Evidence Based Management of the Defect Life Cycle
Why do we want to talk about this?
Analysis of the Defect Life Cycle allows you to:
highlight weak spots
Improve your process
produce a higher quality product
If done right, added benefits include:
Reduce costs and resource allocation
Reduce inefficiencies – defect treatment is better streamlined
Increase product quality
Decrease release delays and time to market
Decrease Defect treatment time by 20%
What are we talking about
Data Management
Mapping the Defect Life Cycle
Standardizing the Defect Life Cycle across multiple projects – considerations
Data Analysis
Metrics required (In Progress / End of Release) to visualize and analyze the Defect Life Cycle
Defect Life Cycle hotspots and bottlenecks, - implications and suggested solutions
Creating a Defect Life Cycle knowledge base for the learning organization

5. How do we do this?
The 4 Stages in analyzing the Defect Life Cycle Process
Create
Identify & Define
Analyze
Improve
Map
State Transitions
Distributions
Identify de-facto characteristics of the process
Simplify
Cycles of Inefficiencies
Average Times
Recognize Root Causes of Gaps
Standardize
Start to End Paths
Gaps
Plan and Implement Improvements
Thresholds

6. A simple (Naïve) Defect Life Cycle
Not many organizations define their defect life cycle at this level of simplicity…
Let’s take a look at an organization that DID NOT simplify (real life example)….

7. A Real Life (Complicated) Planned Defect Life Cycle
New
Open
Fix In Progress
Open
Rejected Incomplete
Open
Ready to Deploy
Open
Assigned to Resolver
Deferred
Release Confirmed
Fixed
Test Delayed
Open
Failed
Open
Assessment
Deferred
Release Not Confirmed
Fixed
Ready for Re-Test
Open
Rejected by Resolver
Fixed
Passed
Rejected
Not Reproducible
Rejected
Not a Fault
Rejected
Out of Scope
Rejected
Change Request
Rejected
Duplicate
Closed
Resolved
Closed
New Defect
Closed
Not Reproducible
Closed
Rejected
Closed
Out of Scope
Closed
Change Request
Closed
Withdrawn
Closed
Duplicate
Re-Opened
Assessment

8. A Real Life (Complicated) Planned Defect Life Cycle
Major Take Aways….
DO NOT define / plan your life cycle to cover any and all possibilities….
DO define / plan your life cycle to meet your monitoring and reporting requirements
e.g.: No need for a “Closed” status for each of the “Rejected” statuses.

9. The Actual Defect Life Cycle
Null
New
Open
Fix In Progress
Open
Rejected Incomplete
Open
Ready to Deploy
Open
Assigned to Resolver
Deferred
Release Confirmed
Fixed
Test Delayed
Open
Failed
Open
Assessment
Deferred
Release Not Confirmed
Fixed
Ready for Re-Test
Open
Rejected by Resolver
Fixed
Passed
Rejected
Not Reproducible
Rejected
Not a Fault
Rejected
Out of Scope
Rejected
Change Request
Rejected
Duplicate
Closed
Resolved
Closed
New Defect
Closed
Not Reproducible
Closed
Rejected
Closed
Out of Scope
Closed
Change Request
Closed
Withdrawn
Closed
Duplicate
Re-Opened
Assessment

10. The Actual Defect Life Cycle
Planned
Major Take Aways….
Make sure that the Defect Life Cycle process is communicated to staff and adhered to….
Make sure that the tools (HP ALM, JIRA, etc..) do not allow for illegal transitions between statuses
Actual

11. Issues and Considerations for Standardizing the Defect Life Cycle#
Issue
Considerations
Constraints 1
Large number of defined statuses across the organization (projects)
Reporting is complex
Define minimal reporting requirements that are standard across the board
Regulatory requirements
Quality requirements 2
Collecting different defect statuses from multiple projects
Dealing with various flavors of the Defect Life Cycle process across projects
Are all these “flavors” really necessary? Why?
How can we standardize?
What is the information required to manage DLC process more effectively and efficiently?
Organizational requirements
Management requirements 3
Organizational inefficiencies across projects
Wasted effort and resource to manage flavors of the Defect Life Cycle process
What improvements are necessary
How to better engineer the process so costs and resources are kept to a minimum while maintaining a high level of quality product?

12. Issues and Considerations for Standardizing the Defect Life Cycle
Suggested steps in standardizations #
Step
Description 1
Analyze the current set of statuses
Collect all the defect statuses from all projects in scope
Analyze list and create unique values 2
Analyze defect status usage level
Make sure that all the statuses are relevant and used
Delete obsolete values 3
Create and Analyze the Defect Network Diagram
(State Transition Diagram)
Map the defect statuses onto the Defect Life Cycle process, thereby defining legal transitions from status to status 4
Verify that defects statuses meet “good enough” criteria
Statuses are exclusive and do not overlap
Status timing changes are correct, i.e., defects should clearly always belong to just ONE status at a time
Statuses are defined and easily understood
Statuses DO NOT try to cover other “fields of purpose” i.e., priority, severity 5
Identify minimum reporting requirements
What is relevant for all projects?
How to support individual project needs, e.g.: projects dealing only with production defect might use a set of statuses that are NOT visible for other projects. 6
Standardize
Standardization is technically easy – the hard part is to decide on:
A new set of standardized statuses that is agreed upon by everyone
Which old statuses should be mapped onto the new standardized statuses

13. Issues and Considerations for Standardizing the Defect Life Cycle
Consolidating Statuses and Paths
Null
New
Open
Fix In Progress
Open
Ready to Deploy
Open
Assigned to Resolver
Fixed
Test Delayed
Open
Failed
Open
Assessment
Fixed
Ready for Re-Test
Open
Rejected
Fixed
Passed
Closed
Resolved

14. Issues and Considerations for Standardizing the Defect Life Cycle
Major Take Aways….
Standardize…Standardize…Standardize
Determine standard thresholds for defect treatment time at each status to recognize hot spots
Identify bottlenecks in the life cycle process
Identify cycles of inefficiencies
Compare projects / releases performances…compare only similar projects / releases according to standard clustering criteria

15. Cycles of Inefficiencies and Start-End Paths
Identifying Cycles of Inefficiencies
Null
New 1
Open
Fix In Progress 3 4
Open
Ready to Deploy 2
Open
Assigned to Resolver 7
Fixed
Test Delayed 9
Open
Failed 5
Open
Assessment 6
Fixed
Ready for Re-Test 11
Open
Rejected 8
Fixed
Passed
2nd order cycles 10
Closed
Resolved

16. Cycles of Inefficiencies and Start-End Paths
Identifying Cycles of Inefficiencies
Null 1
New
Open
Fix In Progress 3 4
Open
Ready to Deploy 2
Open
Assigned to Resolver
Fixed
Test Delayed 7 9
Open
Failed 5
Open
Assessment 6
Fixed
Ready for Re-Test 11
Open
Rejected 8
Fixed
Passed
3rd order cycles 10
Closed
Resolved

17. Cycles of Inefficiencies and Start-End Paths
Identifying Cycles of Inefficiencies
Null
New 1
Open
Fix In Progress 3 4
Open
Ready to Deploy 2
Open
Assigned to Resolver 7
Fixed
Test Delayed 9
Open
Failed 5
Open
Assessment 6
Fixed
Ready for Re-Test 11
Open
Rejected 8
Fixed
Passed
4th order cycles 10
Closed
Resolved

18. Cycles of Inefficiencies and Start-End Paths
Identifying Cycles of Inefficiencies
Null
New 1
Open
Fix In Progress 3 4
Open
Ready to Deploy 2
Open
Assigned to Resolver 7
Fixed
Test Delayed 9
Open
Failed 5
Open
Assessment 6
Fixed
Ready for Re-Test 11
Open
Rejected 8
Fixed
Passed
5th order cycles 10
Closed
Resolved

19. Cycles of Inefficiencies and Start-End Paths
Identifying Cycles of Inefficiencies
Null
New 1 3
Open
Fix In Progress 4
Open
Ready to Deploy 2
Open
Assigned to Resolver 7
Fixed
Test Delayed 9
Open
Failed 5
Open
Assessment 6
Fixed
Ready for Re-Test 11
Open
Rejected 8
Fixed
Passed
6th order cycles 10
Closed
Resolved

20. Cycles of Inefficiencies and Start-End Paths
Identifying Start-End Paths
Null
New
Open
Fix In Progress
Open
Ready to Deploy
Open
Assigned to Resolver
Fixed
Test Delayed
Open
Failed
Open
Assessment
Fixed
Ready for Re-Test
Open
Rejected
Fixed
Passed
Closed
Resolved

21. Defect Life Cycle Management Dashboard
Go To
Defect Life Cycle Management Dashboard

22. Conclusions and Overall Take Aways
Standardize the Defect Life Cycle across the organization
Simplify the process as much as possible to reflect:
Minimal reporting requirements
Project needs
Analyze the defect state transition diagram to identify:
Cycles of Inefficiencies
Start-End paths
Apply metrics and analyze to identify improvements

23. Thank You Contact me directly at oded.tankus@assure.net
For more product details and a quote contact
Meet us at HP Discover 2016
June 2016, Las Vegas, USA