Defects and Phases - Plan_item and Defect_log

[David]

Dear friends of Process Dashboard, we have the following questions:

1- The table (dimension) defect_log in the datawarehouse contains two attributes about phases;
the phase where the defect was injected and the phase where the same defect was removed.
Does it exist the chance to find an injected phase posterior than the removed phase for the same defect?
Example: defect = 1, injected phase = 5, and removed phase = 4

2- What is the relation does exist between the phases of injected and removed in the table defect_log
with the plan_item phase in the table plan_item? plan_item phase has to be equal to injected phase?
Example: plan_item phase = 2, injected phase = 5, and removed phase = 4
We know that the plan_item phase represents the phase when a task was planned to be done, so we think
that this phase has to be equal to the injected phase.
(Is important to clarify that the table defect_log has an attribute called plan_item_key, that`s because we want to know what is the relation with the three phases when we join both tables).

Thank you for the help!
David.

[David Tuma]

For question #1: I believe you can generally rely on the injection phase to precede, or be the same as, the removal phase. This restriction is enforced by the Process Dashboard when a defect is created or edited. So if you retrieve the rows for injection phase and removal phase, the phase_ordinal of the injection phase should be less than or equal to the phase_ordinal of the removal phase.

There could be unusual exceptions to this rule, but they would generally result from someone logging a defect, and then someone editing the process definition later to remove or reorder phases.

For question #2: it may be common for the defect removal phase to correspond to the phase of the associated plan item, but this is not a requirement.

When a user logs a defect, they log it against a particular Plan Item. This is how the defect's plan_item_key is determined. While logging the defect, the user is also given the opportunity to select the phases where the defect was injected and removed. They are permitted to edit both of these values, so the defect removal phase will not always be the same as the phase of the associated plan item.

In addition, it is important to realize that the dashboard recognizes two different kinds of Process entities:

• Metrics Collection Frameworks (MCFs). The dashboard includes two MCFs by default: "TSP" and "PDSSD". These are recorded in the Process table, and their phases (e.g. Planning, Design, Code, etc) are recorded in the Phase table.
• Team Workflows. When a team creates a workflow in the WBS Editor, a corresponding row will be created in the Process table. The steps in the workflow are then recorded in the Phase table.

In Process Dashboard 2.1, the defect injection and removal phases will always point to a phase in an MCF process, never a workflow process. (This is likely to change in the future.) In contrast, the Plan Item may point to a Workflow process phase if the task in question was created by applying a Workflow.

These differences are highlighted in the document entitled, "Process Dashboard Notes for Core Data Schema" which is available at http://www.processdash.com/tpdw

[David]

David, thank you very much for your answer, it help us a lot!

Greetings from Uruguay!
David.