Defect turned into enhancement

Question

Hey Guys!

Can someone provide some guidance on to manage defects found in Jira that turned into enhancement after analysis was completed?

Should we just document the finding and close it out? Should this defect be attached to the now enhancement story?

Can you guys share your thoughts?

Thank you!

-Jess

Jessel Bentley · Answer

@Bill Sheboy thank you so much for your input.

caglad · Answer

We have some many other issues that we just change the issue type from bug to enhancement and close it out. You could also create a label "wasreallyenhancement" or something like that so you can do a report on how many you are updating.

Bill Sheboy · Answer

Hi @Jessel Bentley

In my opinion, this depends upon what you want to measure and influence...

This symptom is an anti-pattern, sometimes called "design by defect", where stakeholders try to get elevated priority by submitting an enhancement request as a defect.  It could also be an education issue where a product's capabilities are misunderstood and so a defect is submitted because something did not work as expected.

If this is infrequently happening, perhaps just convert the issue type and continue on.  But if this is happening often, it may be better to experiment with:

* use a defined triage process for defects, and communicate it to stakeholders
* close the defect with an appropriate resolution / disposition
* communicate to the requestor the resolution and the intake / submission process for enhancement requests
* identify opportunities to educate stakeholders on current and planned features
* measure / monitor the frequency of such defect submissions to decide additional actions

Kind regards,
Bill