The only exhaustive testing there is is so much testing that the tester is exhausted. – William C. Hetzel
I have just read a short article, Don’t Use Bug Counts to Measure Testers by Cem Kaner.
The last paragraph:
If you really need a simple number to use to rank your testers, use a random number generator. It is fairer than bug counting, it probably creates less political infighting, and it might be more accurate.
Brian Marick mentioned it at agile-testing@yahoogroups.com.
From time to time I have to forward our bug severity scale to a customer responsible for reporting bugs.
We use only the first five. I do not remember when I reported a bug with severity six or seven.
1. Showstopper – blocks development and/or testing work, production could not run
2. Critical – crashes, loss of data, major memory leaks
3. Major – major loss of function
4. Minor – minor loss of function; other problem where easy workaround exists
5. Trivial – cosmetic issue like typo, misaligned images, and similar
6. Fix if time – super-low priority
7. Don’t Fix
I have been recommending this articles from FogBugz Online Documentation to our customers (to improve their bug reporting skills):
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