tackling an IT Bug

wonder whats Sev 1??? there are many definitions to it...most common ones could be ...a developers nightmare...a testers delight... and these are one of those "Tickets", which you get free of cost, is use less and can cause you lot of heartache...
yup..Sev 1 or Severity 1 is the crisis situation in IT, when the testers are not able to continue finding (the immobile) bugs in the code, due to the presence of a larger BUG..and they raise a Sev 1 ticket for that..(i am still clueless on why they call it a ticket and defect a BUG)..and once raised, the developer would be on his toes..trying to fix it up..and worst thing is..Sev1 means 24hrs you got to banish that BUG. ie in a day, you need to trace it, catch them red handed, put spray/fix on it..


I have this friend of mine, who happened to be a regular diet of this BUG. He already is like a straw and if more bugs attack him, he would soon be a tooth pick. and BUGS would find it hard to trace him in the plate. Daily when i lunch with him, the common conversation would be around the new BUGs that have come up..And wait...dont take this guy silly...he has his own ways of dealing with this...may be the IT readers would be benefited from this..

1. As soon as you get a Sev1, look if there is any other system involved in it. Just look around the error and if you happen to find, raise the defect in their name. that would take care of the defect for a day. And by the time other team analyze and come up finding that the bug is in your own code, you are safe.

2. Never attend defects that are less that Sev1. Let it qualify and compete with other bugs and come up to Sev1.(He would always be having 2-3 Sev1 in his kitty. So no time for less severe ones)

3. And this one is a approach you can use to keep your managers at their bay. This can help you extend the deadline by a day or even two

Day 1:
morning:
M: Hi T, what about defect# 1234?
T: Hi M, I am still to look into it. I was busy with few other stuffs.
M: oh. OK. I hope you get it fixed soon. Its Sev1.
T: Yes. [ :( ]

afternoon:
M: Hi T, how is 1234?
T: (1234 is doing fine...its me who is suffering) Yes M I just now started looking into it. I got some leads on that, I am working on that.
M: Thats Great

evening:
M: Hope you are done with 1234..
T: Hi M, the initial ananlyzis was not right..but i have got another lead and I am investigating it. should be done by tomorrow.

Day 2:
morning:
M: Hi T, I guess its roses in the morning. you are done with 1234 rt.
T: (gulp!!) err..T, i think the defects root cause is still to be found out, when i check its interaction with system A and its outbound message to system B, the exception raised in that has an essence of system C's outbound message that comes to our system. So we would need to investigate on the possible chance of this error from an outsider perspective, taking all the 3 systems to be culprits.
M: (?????????) I guess you are working hard on this. i hope this gets resolved soon.

by noon:
before M pings
T: Hi M, seems to be an issue with system X. I have raised defect against them.
M: [:S] ok.

and T remains busy till evening or may be night, gets in touch with all the resources possible and gets the issue sorted, which obviously would be a defect in his code. And by next day he is good to go.. In the mean while system X would be searching for possible solution, to which they are not even remotely connected. By the time they realize it, T would have got the issue fixed.

man...this really works... T has learned to survive....



[pic - A Bug's Life]