Fejlprioritering

Fejlprioritering, or defect prioritization, is the process in software development and quality assurance of ranking reported defects by the order in which they should be addressed. The goal is to allocate limited resources efficiently while maintaining product quality and meeting delivery deadlines. Prioritization typically considers the defect's impact on functionality, severity, frequency, reproducibility, and the effort required to fix, as well as business risks and user impact.

Key factors include: severity or impact (how seriously the defect affects users or systems), frequency or occurrence, reproducibility, affected components, security and regulatory risk, potential revenue or cost impact, customer satisfaction, and the estimated effort or complexity of the fix. Some approaches also use formal scoring models or risk matrices, and in agile contexts techniques such as weighted scoring or risk-based prioritization. In some organizations, the relationship between severity and priority is acknowledged: a high-severity issue may have low priority if it occurs rarely in a non-critical area, and vice versa.

Process: defect triage or backlog grooming sessions typically determine priorities, with input from QA, development, product management, and customer support. The output is a prioritized defect backlog aligned with release planning, informing sprints and milestones. Tools like issue trackers provide fields for severity and priority and support triage workflows.

Challenges include incomplete information, shifting requirements, tradeoffs between bug fixes and new work, and regulatory obligations. Effective fejlprioritering supports predictable quality improvement while respecting resource constraints.