80
votes
Is it sound project management practice to make software engineers fix bugs "off the clock"?
And not only are they suppose to correct them, they are suppose to
correct them on their own time without impacting plans.
This is your problem. Why don't your plans include the time for fixing ...
- 3,535
54
votes
Is it sound project management practice to make software engineers fix bugs "off the clock"?
Just as a side note to the other good answers - developers tend to have minds that look at process and (un)consciously find ways to game it.
What you are training your developers to do here is to not ...
- 641
48
votes
Is it sound project management practice to make software engineers fix bugs "off the clock"?
Over the last year we've become pretty hardcore in adopting the principal that an engineers must fix their own defects (those found internally and those that escape to the end users). Not only are ...
- 8,471
29
votes
Is it sound project management practice to make software engineers fix bugs "off the clock"?
This is a troubling post. Your company is penalizing its workers for what is a normal and expected occurrence--performance variability. The whole reason to "punish" someone is for a behavior change, ...
- 37.1k
21
votes
How do I overcome a bottleneck in a team's process, when what people are telling me doesn't match what I see
Your problem is not that you have developers and non-developers (as you call the business analysis/product owner, the designer and the testers). Your problem is that these people have individual ...
- 15k
18
votes
Is it sound project management practice to make software engineers fix bugs "off the clock"?
Aside from the main issue you are asking about, there's also something a little concerning about this part: "defects (those found internally and those that escape to the end users)" I don't see ...
- 281
18
votes
Accepted
How do I overcome a bottleneck in a team's process, when what people are telling me doesn't match what I see
Your team appears to do mini-waterfall development within each sprint, which is a known anti-pattern, as you don't get the collaboration within the team that make agile methods successful.
Also, ...
- 2,760
16
votes
Accepted
Do you consider a defect an actual defect if it occurs in Dev prior to the acceptance of the User Story as Done?
Working software over comprehensive documentation.
In general, I'd say that it just gets fixed and considered part of the work needed to complete the story. When you found the bug, you added a ...
- 1,380
15
votes
Is it sound project management practice to make software engineers fix bugs "off the clock"?
The short answer: No, it isn't!
The not-as-short answer:
Your company has come up with the idea that the existence of bugs is a professional failure on the part of the developer. This is not true.
...
- 151
15
votes
Scrum and interruptions (urgent bugs, requests)
Does Scrum take into account interruptions?
Scrum does not. The Scrum team does.
Scrum teams are self-organized and plan their own work. If part of that work consists of fixing urgent bugs from ...
- 15k
10
votes
Accepted
Should bug/regression tickets be reopened, or new tickets created?
TL;DR
You have an X/Y problem created by skipping over analysis of the process problem in favor of a tools-based approach. JIRA and GitHub Issues are tools, not processes, so until you fully define ...
- 50.1k
10
votes
Is it sound project management practice to make software engineers fix bugs "off the clock"?
"Hardcore" indeed. I don't have much to add to the other good answers, but I'll relate an experience of my own as a developer. I worked for a company in which the culture was similar to what you are ...
- 201
10
votes
How do I overcome a bottleneck in a team's process, when what people are telling me doesn't match what I see
You are doing a lot of good things already, but I would also recommend the following:
Reduce how much you bring into each sprint
Keep on reducing it until the testing bottleneck disappears and the ...
- 19.5k
9
votes
Accepted
Should we demo bug fixes in sprint demos?
It reassures your stakeholders that the bug was, in fact, fixed. It might help them understand what was wrong in the first place, and therefore why it was prioritized.
In some cases it could prompt a ...
- 3,535
9
votes
How to manage a failed sub team inside a scrum team
You asked in terms of scrum, so that is how I'll answer. However, there are a number of red flags in your question that lead me to believe you aren't actually doing scrum (and I am far from a scrum ...
- 3,535
9
votes
How do I overcome a bottleneck in a team's process, when what people are telling me doesn't match what I see
Other comments here all ring true: too waterfall-y, not enough team responsibility, etc. but I'd like to emphasize a point made just once in other answers: you're absolutely setting goals too high. ...
- 191
8
votes
How do we prevent debates over whether changes to user stories are new work or bugs?
How do we capture enough details so that in a month or so, when someone in those discussions comes back and their memory of it was different from ours, we don't get into a debate/discussion over ...
- 50.1k
8
votes
How to manage very small, easy tasks in Agile?
TL;DR
Even when the change is apparently minor, it can have ramifications. The "one-minute fix" to some CSS class might impact the user interface (UI) on some other page the developer isn't thinking ...
- 50.1k
7
votes
How to manage very small, easy tasks in Agile?
Stuff like that should be in the working agreement of the team. There is no right answer on how to handle the situation but there are pros/cons of creating the story/defect and/or underlying task.
...
- 3,932
7
votes
Is it sound project management practice to make software engineers fix bugs "off the clock"?
This practice is good way to drive out your best and brightest, leaving you with a skeleton crew of your bottom performers. I have developed software for generation 4&5 fighter jets and managed ...
- 201
7
votes
Scrum and interruptions (urgent bugs, requests)
TL;DR
The Scrum framework certainly addresses capacity planning and scheduling, although it's not prescriptive about how the Scrum Team should manage the issues you describe. The implementation ...
- 50.1k
6
votes
Is it sound project management practice to make software engineers fix bugs "off the clock"?
In addition to others, I also find this post disturbing.
I've seen Project Managers want to place all sort of metrics on developers, but never on themselves, Product Managers, QA, management, etc. It ...
- 61
6
votes
Defect Found in Previous Iteration - Bug or New Work?
Does it matter how you name it? All extra work is new work when you look at it from a grammar point of view.
You found work that first was not expected (or planned) in the form of a defect. I guess ...
- 5,543
6
votes
Accepted
How to deal with overhead of QA logging bugs that POs aren't interested in fixing?
This sounds like a good topic to bring up at the team's retrospective. There are lots of possible approaches, but the team should decide for themselves.
Some things you might consider:
The QA shows ...
- 19.5k
6
votes
Accepted
Production bugs and epics in Jira
Outside of the Jira context, an Epic represents some kind of deliverable business value. An Epic is usually made up of good Stories, the full value is realized to the client and users after all of the ...
- 19k
6
votes
Extend Sprints or take the renaming tasks to a new Sprint?
Welcome Ayesh!
You have 3 options, and the best option to choose will depend on the details of what is going on:
Ignore the critical bugs for now. Finish the sprint you're doing now, and put the ...
- 3,535
6
votes
How do I overcome a bottleneck in a team's process, when what people are telling me doesn't match what I see
The first question I would want to consider in your position is:
Are the issues being seen in test because the code is unreliable, or because the requirements have not been understood?
The ...
- 161
6
votes
Scrum and interruptions (urgent bugs, requests)
Scrum does address such problems through Inspection & Adaptation.
If your team is wasting a % on repetitive work, it should come up at the end of the sprint as a source of waste. This source of ...
- 8,625
6
votes
What is a healthy [bug cards]/[total cards] ratio for game development?
That seems a very formal and ultimately futile way of viewing things.
Right now, your rate is X. Whatever ratio others tell you is good, that will not change your current reality.
And if you say Y is ...
- 8,471
5
votes
Is it sound project management practice to make software engineers fix bugs "off the clock"?
Defects are part of software development cycle. It certainly cannot be blamed on just a single person. The whole chain is responsible.
Any found defect should be categorized and prioritized. Then it ...
- 5,543
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible