Purpose

Time spent on bug fixing shows the percentage of efforts spent on fixing defects vs. total efforts reported on a project, month by month. 

How metric helps

The metric shows how much effort was spent on fixing defects vs. a total efforts reported on a project on monthly basis in percentage. The less this percentage the less efforts team spends on bug fixing. This means more efforts spent on a regular development (e.g. features, architecture) apart from defects. Even though software bugs are an inextricable part of software maintenance and development activities they may have continuous negative effects such as us inconvenience, inappropriate functionality, and security risk, when it is higher.

• shows the percentage of efforts spent on fixing defects 

• shows time spent on non-defects, e.g. regular development (e.g. features, architecture) 

• shows tendency in defect rework 

• could show a realistic picture of L3 FTE (if it in place)

How metric works

Chart overview

Chart shows time spent in hours (Axis Y) on the monthly timeline (Axis X). 

Open

On hover over a column a hint appears with the following info:

• Month: May 2019

• Total time spent: 250 h

• Spent on defects: 100 h

• Spent on non-defects: 150 h

• Time % spent on defects: 40%

Chart legend shows the following:

• Current month %

• Difference in % since the previous month

By click on a column a pop up appears with the following information got from the defect tracking system:

• Defect ID

• Type

• Priority

• Summary

RAG thresholds: Red - metric value > 50 %; Amber -   20 % < metric value  <= 50 %; Green - metric value <= 20 %.

TOP-5 problems metric identifies 

1. Technical and Quality Debt is out of control

2. No focus on quality of software

3. Absence of roadmap, no vision

4. There is no Test Plan and/or Strategy

Calculation 

Time spent on bug fixing = (time logged in defects for month)/(time spent on all issues logged for the same month)*100 %.

Data Source

Data for the metric can be collected from a task tracking system (Jira, TFS, etc.).

See also

• Time Spent on Bug Fixing (last 90d)