Is a story done even if it has defects attached to it ?

[Clément Berger]

Dear all,

i have a question regarding defects detected during a sprint. If while testing a user story, defects are detected, it seems logical to open bugs about them. But what do you do with the user story at the end of the sprint ? Should it be closed ? Or deported to the next sprint even if there is nothing left to do on it except work on its bugs ? And in that case, what do you do with its story points ?

[John Funk]

Hi Clement,

We classify testing issues as either Bugs or Defects. And we treat them as distinct things. A Defect means something is broken and the code cannot be released without fixing it first. Therefore, not Story (or whatever the parent is) can be moved to Done if there is an open Defect. If the Sprint ends, then that Story is not Done. 

Bugs are classified as something not working correctly and needs to be fixed. But we will not hold the release up for it. So that parent (e.g. Story) is indeed marked Done and it moves on. The Bug can be fixed whenever. 

So, our Defects are actually a Sub-task type with a hard link to the parent. The Bug is just another issue type with a soft link to the parent. 

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi @Clément Berger 

Setting aside the tool (JIRA) for a moment, what does "done" mean to your team?  Considering a definition of done helps the team decide if newly discovered work is part of the original request, a newly discovered issue, or scope creeping.  Sharing that definition with stakeholders helps them understand the readiness of work for production.  For example, does "done" mean there could be remaining defects?

And as others noted, sometimes there is a need from business stakeholders to have something delivered to production, even when it is incomplete.  Use those occurrence as opportunities to learn how the work could have been split into different pieces, while not losing sight of the remaining work.

Once the team understands "done", figuring out how to use JIRA to support that becomes easier, for the team and the stakeholders.

Best regards,

Bill

[Jack Brickey]

It is sort of a personal preference. For me it depends on the definition of the story.  For example of the story is titled “develop this new functionality” then I would contend that the story should be closed and any defects are simply linked to the story and closed independently. If however the story is worded like “develop this feature such that there are no known defects” then I would contend that the story should not be considered done until all known defects were addressed. Generally I   consider the story done independent of defects and use linked defects to assess release readiness.

[Clément Berger]

Thanks for your reponse.

So for you, the user story is done after testing, even if many bugs have been found on it ?