Being Agile: Eleven Breakthrough Techniques to Keep You from “Waterfalling Backward”

Handling Latent Defects

How do you handle pre-existing defects that are discovered in the code when you work on it again? We suggest treating all newly found defects in the same way. No matter whether the defect has existed for years or whether it was just injected this morning, the approach is to “fix it now.” Do not wait until later to fix a defect just because it has existed in the code for a long time.

Of course, the caveat here is that if the defect has been lying dormant in the code for a long time—and customers have not found it yet—then it may not make sense to fix it. In this case, professional judgment needs to be used to ascertain whether the new code being written will likely surface the latent defect. If it does, fix it as part of ...