Issue Management Definition
Wherever we read about software project management, we see references to issue management. That is because of the fact that it is extremely important to create a high quality software product. Regardless of the methodology you use, your product has lots of issues. Usually they occur when the initial code is written. Software development is an extremely complex process. That is why programmers often make mistakes. These mistakes become errors in the initial code. At the stage of product testing they are usually called issues. A high quality software product should not contain issues. Of course, it is hard to create such products, because nothing is perfect. But you have to work on achieving this goal.
Modern software development has a good practice to detect issues and fix them. It is called issue management.
What is issue management in project management?
Issue management definition is quite simple. It is a process aimed at detecting issues, reporting on them, fixing them, and creating their data bases. In spite of such simple definition, the process of issue management is complex. It is subdivided into several sequential stages. To manage all issues of your project you should create an issue management plan and perform it properly.
At the first stage the issues are detected. That is not a simple process and it requires hard work of the team or strong user involvement. The main idea of this process is to test the product or its part and find all issues in it. It is better to involve your team into this process than to let the users detect the issues. That is because of the fact that users are not professionals and they can miss some problems that seriously affect the final product. However, the procedure lasts longer if the product is tested by your team.
After the product is tested, all issues are reported. An issue report is a document that contains the full information on a certain issue. Usually it includes the data on its type, time of its detection, and the possible ways of its correction. However, it may also contain other information that is necessary to fix it. Modern tracking software simplifies the process of issue report writing and make management easy.
At the next stage of the issue management process the issues are fixed. This is the main part of the process. As the issues are fixed and the new software is developed, it should be tested repeatedly. The repeated test is required to make sure that the fixed product or its part works properly.
After the work on correction is finished, the issues are placed into the list. This document contains information on all issues that occurred during the project realization. The issue list is an extremely important document that helps the team avoid similar issues in the future and fix them easily if they occur.
As we see, the process of this kind of management is quite complex. However, it can be simplified by the use of issue tracking tools. Modern issue trackers have an extremely wide array of functionality. They are able to automate the entire process of issue management.
