Would you Delete a BUG which was raised 2 years ago?

Questions
#1

Hi,

In our JIRA backlog we have bugs which were raised 2 years back when the project went into BAU mode . Most of these bugs are lowest - priority wise due to various reasons - IE 6 / X version of Mobile Handset issues , very very edge case scenario , look and feel suggestions etc . The team has been over and over this to conclude below option

  • should be deleted as the end user has never raised them
  • team spends a sprint and just fix all of these once and for all

If anyone of you are facing similar challenge can you share your thought process and team decisions ?

regards
Chitra Adhikary

#2

I’ve seen Jira projects with issues that are years old. I think if realistically a bug won’t be fixed, it should be closed as won’t fix. I wouldn’t delete any, though, just close so you have the record.

1 Like
#3

Who is in charge of pruning your backlog? These sound like candidates that should probably be dropped and closed as will not fix. This is probably best done as a team to ensure that they are considered correctly before dropping.

#4

We try to keep our backlog as representative of issues that we intend to fix at some point (the temptation is to use it as a museum of known issues). From our perspective, we would decide if we want to fix the issue (not necessarily today but ever) and if yes we leave it open and try to decide which patch / release we’ll fix it in.

If the bug gets bumped from releases a few times, there’s every chance that we’ll decide it ain’t getting fixed and simply close it.

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#5

Hey @adhikary.chitra

I second the other opinions here that it would be best to close rather than deleting the bugs raised. Even though they could be old reports and will probably not be fixed, they could still contain valuable information about the behaviour of the software.

I have been in several situations where I have referenced an old bug report for software that is several years old and glad that it wasnt deleted.

Perhaps if you have to delete them, capture the key points or the valuable information they contain into another form.

As with most situations, it will depend on the context, the software you are working on and your team.

Thanks and regards,

Chris

#6

Well, I’d ask these questions if you’re not sure.

  1. Does the bug still happen?
  2. Does the business still support the platform the bug occurs on?
  3. Does the bug block any user flows on those?
  4. Does the bug happen consistently?
  5. Is there reputational risk to the bug being discovered?
  6. Is it difficult to fix?

Then, finally, ask the question “Given the above, will this bug ever be more important than anything else the team could be working on?”
If the answer is no, you’ve got all the reason you need to discard the bug and mark it as Won’t Fix. I wouldn’t delete recorded bugs though, as you’ll want a record of your decision if it does ever get reported again, to know why you didn’t fix it.