issue prioritization tools

critical severity/urgency

system is completely inaccessible or nonfunctional. critical defects are fixed ASAP

resolve immediately. A critically urgent issue means customers expected it to be fixed already or need it fixed now. For example, if you work from home and your internet is down, you would probably want it fixed immediately. An issue with cirtical urgency should be resolved within minutes

major severity/urgency

system is working, but one or mroe features are unavailable. in this instance, the user may access the system, but may not be able to access core features. a company usually opts to deploy fixes for major issues strategically

resolve within hours. An issue with a major urgency score needs to be fixed soon but not right now. Major urgency means the issue should be resolved within hours if you want to avoid impacting the customer or business. For example, if your company’s time tracking platform is down at 9 a.m. and you need to log time by 8 p.m., you would classify this issue's severity as major. The vendor has a few hours to fix it.

minor urgency/severity

all key features are working, but they are not working as expected. users can access all features, but they may need a workaround. repairs to minor issues are included in regularl scheduled releases

resolve when convenient. An issue with minor urgency should be fixed when it is practical. Minor issues can run for weeks or months before affecting the business, if they affect it at all. For instance, a defect regarding a site with bold font where it should be underlined font would be classified as minor.

low

basic functionality is present. cosmetic defects do not affect functionality but should be resolved for branding. these issues are addressed within regularly scheduled releases

medium urgency

resolve within days. A medium-urgency issue is not urgent yet. You may have days to fix this issue. For example, suppose a company’s payroll runs on Monday, and the application goes down on Tuesday. In that case, the vendor needs to fix it within a few days, or it will escalate to major or critical. An issue with medium urgency should be monitored to ensure it is corrected promptly.

control chart

statistical charts that track the variation in a process. does not consider targets or goals. a process performing as expected is “in control”. coversely, a process with unacceptable levels of variation is not performing as expected and is “out of control”

A control chart looks like a run chart with additional data. It is also a time-based line graph. It uses all the data you would use in a run chart and more. Time or sequence is plotted on the horizontal axis, and the corresponding output is measured on the vertical axis. However, a control chart contains three additional lines:

1. The center line (CL) is the mean of the actual values graphed.

2. The upper control limit (UCL) shows the highest expected value for the process, assuming everything is under control.

3. The lower control limit (LCL) shows the lowest expected value for the process, assuming everything is under control.

A process can still produce values above the UCL or below the LCL. However, 99% of the results should occur within the control limits. If a process returns a value outside the control limits, you know something unusual happened.