The Practical Guide to Defect Prevention

Building the Example Defect Taxonomy

The defect taxonomy we use as an example in this chapter is organized around the five stages of a defect:

• Occurrence stage What kind of failure occurred? Where was it discovered in the product cycle? How widespread is its effect?

• Contributing cause(s) stage What human error or systemic knowledge problem contributed to the defect? In which phase was the defect introduced?

• Change stage What was the type and extent of the change made to correct the defect? How widespread is the effect of the change? Where in the product cycle was the change made?

• Detection stage Was the defect detected by an existing test? If so, why wasn’t it caught then? If not, why wasn’t there a test to catch it? What kind of test would catch ...