Adding bugs/issues from tests to stories

[Arjaan den Ouden]

ATM we include a task "Test" in each story. This task is assigned to the team member who does the QA tests.

I'm not sure that this is the right way to address testing in TeamPulse. If not: how should we do this the right way?

My primary question is: how should issues (or are they called bugs?) that roll from QA be registered in TeamPulse? There is no option to add bugs from a task or story. The only way to accomplish this, is recording the issue, go back to the story and do a "Link to existing issue".

I encourage team members to work from their Task Board, but they cannot register their issues from within tasks or stories.

Regards,
Arjaan

[Kamen Ivanov]

Hi Arjaan ,

Tracking testing work depends from the team and how they organize their working process. In fact we track testing stories the same way as you do so I guess you are on the right track.

Regarding testing bugs, issues or risk I am glad to announce that in our next release, which is planned for the middle of April, we are introducing tasks for bugs, issues and risks so you will be able to track the testing work for them in the same way as for stories. 

When you have to log a bug against some story there are some options:

• create a bug/issue, open the story and add a relationship to the bug/issue - what you are doing now
• create a bug/issue and from its overlay add a relationship to the desired story
• the option that you may like most is - form the story description in the overlay use the quick linking and create new bug/issue, that will automatically be linked to the current story

 More information about creating relationships you can find here.

Regards,

Kamen Ivanov
the Telerik team

 

[Arjaan den Ouden]

Hi Kamen,

I'm not sure if you got my current method right.

In our current situation we attach a task with the name "Test" to each story. You mention "testing stories". I'm not sure what that are and how they are related to the real user story. This thread isn't about tracking tasks for bugs, but about a nice and cognitive way to allow registration of issues found when QA executes the task named "Test".

In my opinion a bug is a problem/defect that is being reported by a customer (e.g. via the feedback portal). Issues found by QA should (in my opinion) be addressed as issues.

There is no option to direct link an issue to a story. Only Bugs, Feedbacks, Personas and Stories are available on the quick link dropdown.

PS: I like the upcoming feature of adding tasks to bugs, issues and risks!

Regards,
Arjaan

[Jordan]

Hi Arjaan,

We see the issues in TeamPulse a little bit differently. We look at them as team's impediments.

I'll explain you how we work and you can say what do you think about it.
For testing purpose we are using the acceptance criteria. Before we start developing a story we write and check the acceptance criteria. In general they written during discussing the story. After the story is ready for test the QA has one or more tasks for testing. The QA check the acceptance criteria and if they are not met they create a bug and associate with the story and return the story for development. In our definition of done is written that stories can't be close if there is a bugs with priority high or above.

This is the one way that we are using bugs.
Another thing is what you've described. We are using bugs for problems reported from clients. They are part of the backlog so they are prioritize, estimate and plan.

Kind regards,
Jordan
the Telerik team

[Arjaan den Ouden]

Hi Jordan,

Thanks for your explanation.

I understand that you address issues as impediments. That's the way I'd like to use them as well.

You state that "after a story is ready for test the QA has one or more tasks for testing". I see that the stories tasks are still "In Progress" at that moment. In that situation, I don't see how you can determine the stories status to go to "Ready for test". However, I understand the recording of bugs: against a story. I've no problem with that. The Quick Linker can be of good use then.

However, we like to test on task level, not just stories. As all tasks are accepted (off course, against the acceptance criteria of the parent story), the story is Done.

Today, I found out, that it is possible to add statusses to tasks and adjust the Task Board in TeamPulse. Very nice! I added a status "In Test" and the appropiate transistions to tasks. I also added a column "In Test" to the task board. When a developer or analyst is done with his part-of-the-task, it goes from "In Progess" to "In Test". It gives us an extra level of insight in the status of our tasks/stories/project. We define "In Test" as testing developed code and reviewing documents.

Recording of bugs reported by clients is clear as well: they are part of the backlog and must be addressed/planned in a next iteration.

Thanks again!

Regards,
Arjaan den Ouden

[Jordan]

Hi Arjaan,

I'm happy that you manage to tweak TeamPulse to solve your needs.
I just want to clarify that we try having small stories that solve one business need. In that way we test the whole story. To accomplish that we make a hierarchy of stories. We start with the root story (epic). Than we starts decompose the epic into children stories.

I saw that one of the other teams in the company has similar to your approach. But we found that for us stories works very well. In that way we can finish our stories in the iterations and be sure that we have at the end of every iteration some business value.

Regards,
Jordan
the Telerik team